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nT' 1 

THE COMEDY OF HUMAN LIFE 
By H. DE BALZAC 

SCENES FROM PRIVATE LIFE 

FAME AND SORROW 

(LA MAISON DU CHAT-QUI-PELOTE) 


BALZAC’S NOVELS. 

Translated by Miss K. P. Wormeley. 


Already Published: 

PERE GORIOT. 

DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS. 

RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU. 
EUGENIE GRANDET. 

COUSIN PONS. 

THE COUNTRY DOCTOR. 

THE TWO BROTHERS. 

THE ALKAHEST. 

MODESTE MIGNON. 

THE MAGIC SKIN (Peau de Chagrin). 
COUSIN BETTE. 

LOUIS LAMBERT. 

BUREAUCRACY (Les Employes). 
SERAPHITA. 

SONS OP THE SOIL. 

FAME AND SORROW. 

THE LILY OP THE VALLEY. 

URSULA. 

AN HISTORICAL MYSTERY. 

ALBERT SAVARUS. 


ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
BOSTON. 




ZAC 


KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY 


FAME AND SORROW 

WITH 

COLONEL CHABERT, THE ATHEIST’S MASS, 

LA GRANDE BRET^ICHE, THE PURSE, 

LA GRENADlilRE 



ROBERTS BROTHERS 


3 SOMERSET STREET 

BOSTON 

1892 


Copyright^ 1890, 

By Roberts Brothers. 
All rights reserved. 


* r 0 « * 

C C «• 

• « I t 

• t * 

1 . « 



SntbfrattB JPrcBs: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 


CONTENTS. 


Fame and Sorrow 1 

Colonel Chabert 93 

The Atheist’s Mass 193 

La Grande Breteche * . . . . . 221 

The Purse 255 

La Grenadiere 303 




FAME ANB SORROW.* 


Dedicated to Mademoiselle Marie de Montheau. 


About the middle of the rue Saint-Denis, and near 
the corner of the rue du Petit-Lion, there stood, not 
very long ago, one of those precious houses which 
enable historians to reconstruct by analogy the Paris 
of former times. The frowning walls of this shabby 
building seemed to have been originally decorated by 
hieroglyphics. What other name could a passing ob- 
server give to the X’s and the Y*s traced upon them 
by the transversal or diagonal pieces of wood which 
showed under the stucco through a number of little* 
parallel cracks? Evidently, the jar of each passing 
carriage shook the old joists in their plaster coatings. 

1 This was the title ( Gloire et Malheur) under which the story 
was first published in 1830. The name was changed in 1842 to 
La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote. The awkwardness of the title in 
English (The House of the Cat-playing-ball) leads the translator 
to use the original name given by Balzac. 

1 


9 


Fame and Sorrow. 


The venerable building was covered with a triangular 
roof, a shape of which no specimen will exist much 
longer in Paris. This roof, twisted out of line by the 
inclemencies of Parisian weather, overhung the street 
b}’ about three feet, as much to protect the door-steps 
from the rain as to shelter the wall of the garret and its 
frameless window ; for the upper store}’ was built of 
planks, nailed one above the other like slates, so as not 
to overweight the construction beneath it. 

On a rainy morning in the month of March, a young 
man carefully wrapped in a cloak was standing beneath 
the awning of a shop directly opposite to the old build- 
ing, which he examined with the enthusiasm of an archm- 
ologist ; for, in truth, this relic of the bourgeoisie of the 
sixteenth century presented more than one problem to 
the mind of an intelligent observer. Each storey had 
its own peculiarity ; on the first were four long, narrow 
windows very close to each other, with wooden squares 
in place of glass panes to the lower sash, so as to give 
the uncertain light by which a clever shopkeeper can 
make his goods match any color desired by a customer. 

The 3’oung man seemed to disdain this important part 
of the house ; in fact, his eyes had not even rested on 
it. The windows of the second floor, the raised outer 
blinds of which gave to sight through large panes of 
Bohemian glass small muslin curtains of a reddish tinge, 
seemed also not to interest him. His attention centred 


Fame and Sorrow. 


3 


on the third store}’, — on certain humble windows, the 
wooden frames of which deserved a place in the Con- 
servatory of Arts and Manufactures as specimens of 
(lie earliest efforts of French joinery. These windows 
liad little panes of so green a glass that had he not 
possessed an excellent pair of eyes the 3’oung man could 
not have seen the blue-checked curtains which hid the 
m3’steries of the room from the gaze of the profane. 
Occasional!}’ the watcher, as if tired of his abortive 
watch, or anno3'ed by the silence in which the house 
was buried, dropped his e3’es to the lower regions. An 
involuntary smile would then flicker on his lips as he 
glanced at the shop, where, indeed, were certain things 
that were laughable enough. 

A formidable beam of wood, resting horizon tall}^ on 
four pillars which appeared to bend under the weight of 
the decrepit house, had received as man}’ and diverse 
coats of paint as the cheek of an old duchess. At the 
middle of this large beam, slightly carved, was an an- 
tique picture representing a cat playing ball. It was 
this work of art which made the young man smile ; and 
it must be owned that not the cleverest of modern 
painters could have invented a more comical design, 
'fhe animal held in one of its fore-paws a racket as big 
as itself, and stood up on its hind paws to aim at an 
enormous ball which a gentleman in a brocaded coat was 
tossing to it. Design, colors, and accessories were all 


4 


Fame and Sorrow. 


treated in a way to inspire a belief that the artist meant 
to make fun of both merchant and customers. Time, 
b}^ altering the crude colors, had made the picture still 
more grotesque through certain bewildering changes, 
which could not fail to trouble a conscientious observer. 
For instance, the ringed tail of the cat was cut apart in 
such a way that the end might be taken for an onlooker, 
so thick, long, and well-covered were the tails of the 
cats of our ancestors. To the right of the picture, on a 
blue ground, which imperfectly concealed the rotten 
wood, could be read the name “ Guillaume,” and to the 
left the words “ Successor to the Sieur Chevrel.” 

Sun and rain had tarnished or washed off the greater 
part of the gilding parsimoniousl}' bestowed upon the 
letters of this inscription, in which U’s stood in place of 
V’s, and vice versa., according to the rules of our ancient 
orthograph}'. In order to bring down the pride of those 
who think the world is daily growing cleverer and wit- 
tier, and that modern claptrappery surpasses everything 
that went before, it may be well to mention here that 
such signs as these, the et3unolog3' of which seems fan- 
tastic to man}' Parisian merchants, are reall}' the dead 
pictures of once living realities by which our livel}* an- 
cestors contrived to entice customers into their shops. 
Thus, “The Sow a-Spinning,” “The Green Monke}*,” 
and so forth, were live animals in cages, whose clever 
tricks delighted the passers in the streets, and whose 


Fame and Sorrow. 


5 


training proved the patience of the shopkeepers of the 
fifteenth century. Such natural curiosities brought bet- 
ter profits to their fortunate possessors than the fine 
names, “Good Faith,’’ “Providence,” “The Grace of 
God,” “The Decapitation of Saint John the Baptist,” 
which are still to be seen in that same rue Saint-Denis. 

However, our unknown 3’oung man was certainly not 
stationed there to admire the cat, which a moment’s 
notice sufficed to fix in his memory. He too, had his 
peculiarities. His cloak, flung about him after the man- 
ner of antique draper\% left to sight the elegant shoes 
and white silk stockings on his feet, which were all the 
more noticeable in the midst of that Parisian mud, 
several spots of which seemed to prove the haste with 
which he had made his way there. No doubt he had 
just left a wedding or a ball, for at this earl}^ hour of 
the morning he held a pair of white gloves in his hand, 
and the curls of his black hair, now uncurled and tum- 
bling on his shoulders, seemed to indicate a style of 
wearing it called “ Caracalla,” a fashion set by the 
painter David and his school, and followed with that 
devotion to Greek and Roman ideas and shapes which 
marked the earlier 3’ears of this century. 

In spite of the noise made b}^ a few belated kitchen- 
gardeners as they gallopped their cartloads of produce 
to the markets, the street was still hushed in that calm 
stillness the magic of which is known onl^^ to those who 


6 


Fame and Sorrow. 


wander about a deserted Paris at the hour when its 
nightly uproar ceases for a moment, then reawakes and 
is heard in the distance like the voice of Ocean. 

This singular young man must have seemed as odd 
to the shopkeepers of the Cat-playing-ball as the Cat- 
playing-ball seemed to him. A dazzling white cravat 
made his harassed white face even paler than it really 
was. The fire of his black e3’es, that were sparkling 
and 3’et gloom3’, harmonized with the eccentric outline 
of his face, and with his large, sinuous mouth, which con- 
tracted when he smiled. His forehead, wrinkling under 
an3" violent annoyance, had something fatal about it. 
The forehead is surel3’ the most prophetic feature of the 
face. When that of this unknown 3^oung man expressed 
anger, the creases which immediately showed upon it 
excited a sort of terror, through the force of passion 
which brought them there ; but the moment he recov- 
ered his calmness, so easil3'’ shaken, the brow shone 
with a luminous grace that embellished the whole coun- 
tenance, where 303^ and grief, love, anger, and disdain 
flashed forth in so communicative a wa3’ that the coldest 
of men was inevitabl3’ impressed. 

It chanced that the man was so anno3*ed at the mo- 
ment when some one hastily opened the garret window, 
that he missed seeing three jo3’Ous faces, plump, and 
white, and ros3", but also as commonplace as those given 
to the statues of Commerce on public buildings. These 


Fame and Sorrow, 


7 


three heads framed b}’ the open window, recalled the 
puffy angel faces scattered among the clouds, which 
usually accompany the Eternal Father. The appren- 
tices were inhaling the emanations from the street with 
an eagerness which showed how hot and mephitic the 
atmosphere of their garret must have been. The elder 
of the three clerks, after pointing out to his companions 
the stranger in the street, disappeared for a moment 
and then returned, holding in his hand an instrument 
whose inflexible metal has latel3" been replaced b}' sup- 
ple leather. Thereupon a mischievous expression came 
upon all three faces as they looked at the singulat watch- 
er, while the elder proceeded to shower him with a flne 
white rain, the odor of which proved that three chins 
had just been shaved. Standing back in the room on 
tiptoe to enjoy their victim’s rage, the clerks all stopped 
laughing when they saw the careless disdain with which 
the young man shook the drops from his mantle, and 
the profound contempt apparent on his face when he 
raised his ej^es to the now vacant window. 

Just then a delicate white hand lifted the lower part 
of one of the roughly- made windows on the third floor 
b}^ means of those old-fashioned grooves, whose pulleys 
so often let fall the heav^^ sashes thev were intended to 
hold up. The watcher was rewarded for his long wait- 
ing. The face of a young girl, fresh as the white lilies 
that bloom on the surface of a lake, appeared, framed 


8 


Fame and Sorrow, 


b}’ a rumpled muslin cap, which gave a delightful look 
of innocence to the head. Her neck and shoulders, 
though covered with some brown stuff, were plainly* 
seen through rifts in the garment opened by movements 
made in sleep. No sign of constraint marred the in- 
genuous expression of that face nor the calm of those 
e3'es, immortalized already* in the sublime conceptions 
of Raffaelle ; here was the same grace, the same virgin 
tranquillitv’ now become proverbial. A charming con- 
trast was produced b^" the youth of the cheeks, on which 
sleep had thrown into relief a superabundance of life, 
and the age of the massive window, with its coarse 
frame now blackened b}^ time. Like those da^^-bloom- 
ing flowers which in the earlj- morning have not as yet 
unfolded their tunics tightl}^ closed against the chill of 
night, the 3’oung girl, scarcely awake, let her e^’es wan- 
der across the neighboring roofs and upward to the sk}^ ; 
then she lowered them to the gloomy precincts of the 
street, where they at once encountered those of her 
adorer. No doubt her innate coquetr}’ caused her a 
pang of mortification at being seen in such dishabille, 
for she quickly drew back, the worn-out sash-pulle}" 
turned, the window came down with a rapidity which 
has earned, in our dav, an odious name for that naive 
invention of our ancestors, and the vision disappeared. 
The brightest of the stars of the morning seemed to the 
young man to have passed suddenlj' under a cloud. 


Fame and Sorrow. 


9 


While these trifling events were occurring, the heavy 
inside shutters which protected the thin glass of the 
windows in the shop, called the House of the Cat- 
playing-ball, had been opened as if b3" magic. The 
door, with its old-fashioned knocker, was set back 
against the inner wall by a serving-man, who might 
have been contemporaiy with the sign itself, and whose 
shaking hand fastened to the picture a square bit of 
cloth, on which were embroidered in .yellow silk the 
words, “ Guillaume, successor to Chevrel.” More than 
one pedestrian would have been unable to guess the 
business in which the said Guillaume was engaged, 
'i'hrough the heavy iron bars which protected the shop 
window on the outside, it was difficult to see the bales 
wrapped in brown linen, which were as numerous as a 
school of herrings on their way across the ocean. In 
spite of the apparent simplicity of this gothic facade, 
Monsieur Guillaume was among the best known drapers 
in Paris, one whose shop was always well supplied, 
whose business relations were widely extended, and 
whose commercial honor no one had ever doubted. If 
some of his fellow-tradesmen made contracts with the 
government without possessing cloth enough to fulfil 
them, he was alwaj’s able and willing to lend them 
enough to make up deficiencies, however large the num- 
ber contracted for might be. The shrewd dealer knew 
a hundred ways of drawing the lion’s share of profits to 


10 


Fame and Sorrow. 


himself without being forced, like the others, to beg for 
influence, or do base things, or give rich presents. If 
the tradesmen he thus assisted could not pay the loan 
except by long drafts on good security, he referred 
them to his notary, like an accommodating man, and 
managed to get a double proflt out of the aflair ; an 
expedient which led to a remark, almost proverbial in 
the rue Saint-Denis, “ God keep us from the notar3^of 
Monsieur Guillaume ! ” 

The old dealer happened, as if b}^ some miraculous 
chance, to be standing at the open door of his shop 
just as the servant, having flnished that part of his 
morning dut}^ withdrew. Monsieur Guillaume looked 
up and down the rue Saint-Denis, then at the adjoining 
shops, and then at the weather, like a man landing 
at Havre who sees France again after a long voy- 
age. Having fully convinced himself that nothing had 
changed since he went to sleep the night before, he 
now perceived the man doing sentr^^ duty, who, on his 
side, was examining the patriarch of drapery very much 
as Humboldt must have examined the first electric eel 
which he saw in America. 

Monsieur Guillaume wore wide breeches of black 
velvet, dyed stockings, and square shoes with silver 
buckles ; his coat, made with square lappels, square 
skirts, and square collar, wrapped a figure, slightly bent, 
in its loose folds of greenish cloth, and was fastened with 


Fame and Sorrow, 


11 


large, white, metal buttons tarnished from use ; his gray 
hair was so carefully combed and plastered to his yel- 
low skull that the two presented somewhat the effect of 
a ploughed field ; his little green eyes, sharp as gimlets, 
glittered under lids whose pale red edges took the place 
of lashes. Care had furrowed his brow with as man}'' 
horizontal lines as there were folds in his coat. The 
pallid face bespoke patience, commercial wisdom, and 
a species of sly cupidity acquired in business. 

At the period of which we write it was less rare than 
it is now to meet with old commercial families who pre- 
served as precious traditions the manners, customs, and 
characteristics of their particular callings ; and who 
remained, in the midst of the new civilization, as ante- 
diluvian as the fossils discovered by Cuvier in the quar- 
ries. The head of the Guillaume family was one of these 
noteworthy guardians of old customs ; he even regretted 
the provost-marshal of merchants, and never spoke of a 
decision in the court of commerce without calling it “ the 
sentence of the consuls.” Having risen, in accordance 
with these customs, the earliest in the house, he was 
now awaiting with a determined air the arrival of his 
three clerks, intending to scold them if a trifle late. 
Those heedless disciples of Mercury knew nothing more 
appalling than the silent observation with which the 
master scrutinized their faces and their movements of a 
Monday morning, searching for proofs or traces of their 


12 


Fame and Soi'row. 


frolics. But, strange to say, just as they appeared, the 
old draper paid no attention to his apprentices ; he was 
engaged in finding a motive for the evident interest 
with which the young man in silk stockings and a 
cloak turned his e^’es alternatel}" on the pictured sign 
and then into • the depths of the shop. The daylight, 
now increasing, showed the counting-room behind an 
iron railing covered by curtains of faded green silk, 
where Monsieur Guillaume kept his huge books, the mute 
oracles of his business. The too inquisitive stranger 
seemed to have an e^’e on them, and also to be scruti- 
nizing the adjoining dining-room, where the family", 
when assembled for a meal, could see whatever hap- 
pened at the entrance of the shop. So great an interest 
in his private premises seemed suspicious to the old 
merchant, who had lived under the law of the maxi- 
mum. Consequent!}^, Monsieur Guillaume supposed, 
not unnaturally, that the doubtful stranger had designs 
upon his strong-box. 

The elder of the clerks, after discreetly enjoying the 
silent duel which was taking place between his master 
and the stranger, ventured to come out upon the step 
where stood Monsieur Guillaume, and there he observed 
that the young man was glancing furtivel}^ at the third- 
floor windows. The clerk made three steps into the 
street, looked up, and fancied he caught sight of Ma- 
demoiselle Augustine Guillaume hastily retiring. Dis- 


Fame and Sorrow, 


13 


pleased with this show of perspicacit}* on the part of his 
head-clerk, the draper looked askance at his subordi- 
nate. Then suddenly the mutual anxieties excited in 
the souls of lover and merchant were allayed, — the 
stranger hailed a passing hackney coach, and jumped 
into it with a deceitful air of indifference. His depart- 
ure shed a sort of balm into the souls of the other 
clerks, who were somewhat uneasy at the presence of 
their victim. 

“ Well, gentlemen, what are you about, standing 
there with your arms crossed ? ” said Monsieur Guil- 
laume to his three neophytes. “ In my day, good 
faith, when I was under the Sieur Chevrel, I had ex- 
amined two pieces of cloth before this time of day ! ” 

“Then it must have been da3dight earlier,” said the 
second clerk, whose dutj^ it was to examine the rolls. 

The old dealer could not help smiling. Though two 
of the three clerks, consigned to his care by their fath- 
ers, rich manufacturers at Louviers and Sedan, had only 
to ask on the day the^’ came of age for a hundred thou- 
sand francs, to have them, Guillaume believed it to be 
his dut}" to keep them under the iron rod of an old- 
fashioned despotism, wholly unknown in these da3’s in 
our brilliant modern shops, where the clerks expect to 
be rich men at thirt3’, — he made them work like negro 
slaves. His three clerks did as much as would have 
tired out ten of the modern sybarites whose laziness 


14 


Fame and Sorrow. 


swells the columns of a budget. No sound ever broke 
the stillness of that solemn establishment, where all 
hinges were oiled, and the smallest article of furniture 
was kept with a virtuous nicety which showed severe 
economy and the strictest order. Sometimes the gid- 
diest of the three clerks ventured to scratch upon the 
rind of the Gruyere cheese, which was delivered to 
them at breakfast and scrupulously respected by them, 
the date of its first deliver}". This prank, and a few 
others of a like kind, would occasionally bring a smile 
to the lips of Guillaume’s youngest daughter, the pretty 
maiden who had just passed like a vision before the 
e3"es of the enchanted watcher. 

Though each of the apprentices paid a large sum for 
his board, not one of them would have dared to remain 
at table until the dessert was served. When Madame 
Guillaume made read}" to mix the salad, the poor young 
fellows trembled to think with what parsimony that pru- 
dent hand would pour the oil. They were not allowed 
to pass a night off the premises without giving long 
notice and plausible reasons for the irregularity. Every 
Sunday two clerks, taking the honor by turns, accom- 
panied the Guillaume family to mass and to vespers. 
Mesdemoiselles Virginie and Augustine, Gillaume’s two 
daughters, modestly attired in printed cotton gowns, 
each took the arm of a clerk and walked in front, 
beneath the piercing eyes of their mother, who brought 


Fame and Sorrow, 


15 


iij) the domestic procession with her husband, com- 
pelled b}’ her to carry two large prayer-books bound 
in black morocco. The second clerk received no salary ; 
as to the elder, whom twelve years of perseverance and 
discretion had initiated into the secrets of the establish- 
ment, he received twelve hundred francs a 3'ear in re- 
turn for his services. On certain familv^ fete-daj^s a few 
gifts were bestowed upon him, the sole value of which 
la}’ in the labor of Madame Guillaume’s lean and wrinkled 
hands, — knitted purses, which she took care to stuff 
with cotton wool to show their patterns, braces of the 
strongest construction, or silk stockings of the heaviest 
make. Sometimes, but rarel}’, this prime minister was 
allowed to share the enjoj’ments of the famil}’ wdien they 
spent a day in the country or, after months of deliber- 
ation, the}’ decided to hire a box at the theatre, and 
use their right to demand some play of which Paris had 
long been weary. 

As to the other clerks, the barrier of respect which 
formerly separated a master draper from bis appren- 
tices was so firmly fixed between them and the old 
merchant that they would have feared less to steal a 
piece of cloth than to break through that august eti- 
quette. This deference may seem preposterous in our 
day, but these old houses were schools of commercial 
honesty and dignity. The masters adopted the appren- 
tices ; their linen was cared for, mended, and often re- 


16 


Fame and Sorrow. 


newed by the mistress of the house. If a clerk fell ill 
the attention he received was truly maternal ; in case of 
danger the master spared no money and called in the 
best doctors, for he held himself answerable to the 
parents of these young men for their health as well as 
for their morals and their business training. If one of 
them, honorable by nature, was overtaken by some dis- 
aster, these old merchants knew how to appreciate the 
real intelligence such a 3’outh had displayed, and often 
did not hesitate to trust the happiness of a daughter to 
one to whom they had alread}^ confided the care of their 
business. Guillaume was one of these old-fashioned busi- 
ness men ; if he had their absurdities, he had also their 
fine qualities. Thus it was that Joseph Lebas, his head- 
clerk, an orphan without propert}’, was, to his mind, a 
suitable husband for Virginie, his eldest daughter. But 
Joseph did not share these cut-and-dried opinions of 
his master, who, for an empire, would not have married 
his 3^oungest daughter before the elder. The unfortu- 
nate clerk felt that his heart was given to Mademoiselle 
Augustine, the 3'ounger sister. To explain this passion, 
which had grown up secretly, we must look further into 
the S3’stem of autocratic government which ruled the 
house and home of the old merchant draper. 

Guillaume had two daughters. The eldest. Made- 
moiselle Virginie, was a reproduction of her mother. 
Madame Guillaume, daughter of the Sieur Chevrel, sat 


Fame and Sorrow. 


17 


BO firmly upright behind her counter that she had more 
than once overheard bets as to her being impaled there. 
Her long, thin face expressed a sanctimonious piety. 
Madame Guillaume, devoid of all grace and without 
amiability of manner, covered her sexagenary head with 
a bonnet of invariable shape trimmed with long lappets 
like those of a widow. The whole neighborhood called 
her “the nun.” Her words were few; her gestures 
sudden and jerkj", like the action of a telegraph. Her 
eyes, clear as those of a cat, seemed to dislike the 
whole world because she herself was ugl}^ Mademoi- 
selle Virginie, brought up, like her 3’ounger sister, under 
the domestic rule of her mother, was now twent^'-eight 
3^ears of age. Youth softened the ill-favored, awkward 
air which her resemblance to her mother gave at times 
to her appearance ; but maternal severit3^ had bestowed 
upon her two great qualities which counterbalanced the 
rest of her inheritance, — she was gentle and patient. 
Mademoiselle Augustine, now scarcely eighteen 3’ears 
old, was like neither father nor mother. She was one 
of those girls who, by the absence of all ph3'sical ties 
to their parents, seem to justify the saying of prudes, 
“God sends the children.” Augustine was small, or, 
to give a better idea of her, delicate. Graceful and full 
of simplicity and candor, a man of the world could have 
found no fault with the charming creature except that 
her gestures were unmeaning and her attitudes occasion- 

2 


18 


Fame and Sorrow. 


ally common, or even awkward. Her silent and qui- 
escent face expressed the fleeting melancholy which 
fastens upon all young girls who are too feeble to dare 
resist the will of a domineering mother. 

Always modestlj^ dressed, the two sisters had no waj' 
of satisfying the innate coquetry of their woman’s nature 
except by a luxury of cleanliness and neatness which 
became them wonderfullj^, and put them in keeping 
with the shining counters and shelves on which the old 
servant allowed not a speck of dust to settle, — in 
keeping, too, with the antique simplicity of everything 
about them. Forced by such a life to find the elements 
of happiness in regular occupation, Augustine and Vir- 
ginie had up to this time given nothing but satisfac- 
tion to their mother, who secretly congratulated herself 
on the perfect characters of her two daughters. It is 
easy to imagine the results of such an education as 
they had received. Brought up in the midst of busi- 
ness, accustomed to hear arguments and calculations 
that were grievously mercantile, taught grammar, book- 
keeping, a little Jewish history, a little French history 
In La Ragois, and allowed to read no books but those 
their mother sanctioned, it is unnecessary to say that 
their ideas were limited ; but they knew how to manage 
a household admirably ; they understood the value and 
the cost of things ; they appreciated the difficulties in 
the wa}' of amassing money ; they were economical and 


Fame and Sorrotv. 


19 


full of respect for the faculties and qualities of men of 
business. In spite of their father’s wealth, they were 
as clever at darning as they were at embroidery ; their 
mother talked of teaching them to cook, so that they 
might know how to order a dinner and scold the cook 
from actual experience. 

These girls, who were ignorant of the pleasures of the 
world and saw only the peaceful current of "their parents’ 
exemplary lives, seldom cast their youthful e3'es beyond 
the precincts of that old patrimonial house, which to 
their mother was the universe. The parties occasioned 
by certain family solemnities formed the whole horizon 
of their terrestrial joys. When the large salon on the 
second floor was thrown open to receive guests, — such 
as Madame Roguin, formerly’ Mademoiselle Chevrel, 
fifteen 3'ears 3-011 nger than her cousin, and who wore 
diamonds ; 3'oung Rabourdin, head-clerk at the ministry 
of Finance ; Monsieur Caesar Birotteau, the rich per- 
fumer, and his wife, called Madame Caesar ; Monsieur 
Camusot, the richest silk merchant in the rue des Bour- 
donnais ; his father-in-law. Monsieur Cardot ; two or 
three old bankers, and certain irreproachable women, — 
then the preparations in getting out the silver plate, the 
Dresden china, the wax candles, the choice glass, all 
carefully packed awa3-, were a diversion to the monoto- 
nous lives of the three women, who went and came, 
with as man3" steps and as much fuss as though they 


20 


Fame and Sorrow. 


were nuns preparing for the reception of their bishop. 
Then, at night, when all three were tired out with the 
exertion of wiping, rubbing, unpacking, and putting in 
their places the ornaments of these festivals, and the 
young girls were helping their mother to go to bed, 
Madame Guillaume would say, “My dears, we have 
really accomplished nothing.” 

If, at these solemn assemblies, the pious creature al- 
lowed a little dancing, and kept the whist and the 
boston and the tric-trac players to the confines of her 
own bedroom, the concession was accepted as an un- 
hoped-for felicit}", and gave as much happiness as the 
two or three public balls to which Guillaume took his 
daughters during the carnival. Once a year the worthy 
draper himself gave an entertainment on which he 
spared no expense. However rich and elegant the in- 
jvdted guests might be, they took care not to miss that 
fete ; for the most important business houses in the 
city often had recourse to the vast credit, or the wealth, 
or the great experience of Monsieur Guillaume. The 
two daughters of the worthy merchant did not, however, 
profit as much as might be thought from the instructions 
which society offers to j’oung minds. The}" wore at 
these entertainments (bills of exchange, as it were, upon 
futurity) wreaths and ornaments of so common a kind 
as to make them blush. Their style of dancing was not 
of the best, and maternal vigilance allowed them to say 


Fame and Sorroiv, 


21 


only Yes ” or “ No ” to their partners. Then the invari- 
able domestic rule of the Cat-plaving-ball obliged them 
to retire at eleven o’clock, just as the part}’ was getting 
animated. So their pleasures, apparently conformable 
with their father’s wealth, were really dull and insipid 
tlirough circumstances derived from the habits and 
principles of their family. 

As to their daily life, a single fact will suffice to paint 
it. Madame Guillaume required her daughters to dress 
for the day in the early morning, to come downstairs 
at precisely the same hour, and to arrange their occu- 
pations with monastic regularity. Yet, with all this, 
chance had bestowed upon Augustine a soul that was 
able to feel the void of such an existence. Sometimes 
those blue eyes were lifted for a moment as if to ques- 
tion the dark depths of the stairway or the damp shop. 
Listening to the cloistral silence her ears seemed to hear 
from afar confused revelations of the passionate life, 
which counts emotions as of more value than things. At 
such moments the girl’s face glowed ; her idle hands 
let fall the muslin on the polished oaken counter ; but 
soon the mother’s voice would say, in tones that were 
always sharp, even when she intended them to be 
gentle, “Augustine, my dear, what are you thinking 
about ? ” 

Perhaps “ Hippolyte, Earl of Douglas,” and the 
“ Comte de Comminges,” two novels which Augustine 


22 


Fame and Sorroiv. 


had found in the closet of a cook dismissed Madame 
Guillaume, may have contributed to develop the ideas 
of the young girl, who had stealthily devoured those 
productions during the long nights of the preceding 
wdnter. The unconscious expression of vague desire, 
the soft voice, the jasmine skin, and the blue e3’es of 
Augustine Guillaume had lighted a flame in the soul of 
poor Lebas as violent as it was humble. By a caprice 
that is eas}" enough to understand, Augustine felt no 
inclination for Joseph ; perhaps because she did not 
know he loved her. On the other hand, the long legs 
and chestnut hair, the strong hands and vigorous frame 
of the head-clerk excited the admiration of Mademoiselle 
Virginie, who had not yet been asked in marriage in 
spite of a dowry of a hundred and fifty thousand francs. 
What could be more natural than these inversed loves, 
born in the silence of that shop like violets in the depths 
of the woods? The mute contemplation which constantly 
drew the e3'es of these 3’oung people together, through 
their violent need of some relief from the monotonous 
toil and the religious calm in which they lived, could not 
fail to excite, sooner or later, the emotions of love. 
The habit of looking into the face of another leads to 
an understanding of the noble qualities of the soul, and 
ends b3^ obliterating all defects. 

“ At the rate that man carries things,” thought Mon- 
sieur Guillaume when he read Napoleon’s first decree on 


Fame and Sorrow. 


23 


the classes for conscription, ‘‘our daughters will have 
to go upon their knees for husbands.” 

It was about that time that the old merchant, noticing 
that his eldest daughter was beginning to fade, be- 
thought him that he himself had married Mademoiselle 
Chevrel under very much the same circumstances as 
those in which Virginie and Joseph Lebas stood to each 
other. What a fine thing it would be to marrj" his 
daughter and pay a sacred debt by returning to the 
orphaned young man the same benefaction that he him- 
self had received from his predecessor in a like situa- 
tion? Joseph Lebas, who was thirt3’-three 3’ears of 
age, was fully conscious of the obstacles that a differ- 
ence of fifteen 3’ears in their ages placed between Au- 
gustine and himself. Too shrewd and intelligent not to 
fathom Monsieur Guillaume’s intentions, he understood 
his master’s inexorable principles far too well to sup- 
pose for a moment that the younger daughter could be 
married before the elder. The poor clerk, whose heart 
Tvas as good as his legs were long and his shoulders 
high, suffered in silence. 

Such was the state of things in this little republic of 
the rue Saint-Denis, which seemed in many wa3^s like an 
annex to La Trappe. But to explain external events 
as we have now explained inward feelings, it is neces- 
saiy to look back a few months before the little scene 
which began this history. 


24 


Fame and Sorrow. 


One evening at dusk a young man, happening to pass 
before the shop of the Cat-playing-ball, stopped to look 
at a scene within those precincts which all the painters 
of the world would have paused to contemplate. The 
shop, which was not yet lighted up, formed a dark vista 
through which the merchant's dining-room was seen. 
An astral lamp on the dinner-table shed that yellow 
light which gives such charm to the Dutch pictures. 
The white table-linen, the silver, the glass, were bril- 
liant accessories, still further thrown into relief by the 
sharp contrasts of light and shadow. The figures of 
the father of the family and his wife, the faces of the 
clerks, and the pure lines of Augustine, near to whom 
stood a stout, chubby servant-girl, composed so remark- 
able a picture, the heads were so original, the expression 
of each character was so frank, it w'as so easy to imagine 
the peace, the silence, the modest life of the famil}’, that 
to an artist accustomed to express nature there was 
something absolutely commanding in the desire to paint 
this accidental scene. 

The pedestrian, thus arrested, was a j’oung painter 
who, seven years earlier, had carried off the prix de 
Rome. He had lately returned from the Eternal City. 
His soul, fed on poesy, his eyes surfeited with Raffaelle 
and Michael- Angelo, were now athirst for simple nature 
after his long sojourn in the mighty land where art has 
reached its highest grandeur. True or false, such was 


Fame and Sorrow. 


25 


bis personal feeling. Carried awa}’ for 3’ears b}’ the fire 
of Italian passions, his heart now sought a calm and 
modest virgin, known to him as 3’et onl^' upon canvas. 
The first enthusiasm of his soul at the simple picture 
before his eyes passed naturally into a deep admiration 
for the principal figure. Augustine seemed thoughtful, 
and was eating nothing. By a chance arrangement of 
the lamp, the light fell full upon her face, and her bust 
appeared to move in a circle of flame, which threw into 
still brighter relief the outline of her head, illuminating 
it in a wa}^ that seemed half supernaturah The artist 
compared her involuntarily" to an exiled angel remem- 
bering heaven. A my^sterious feeling, almost unknown 
to him, a love limpid and bubbling overflowed his 
heart. After standing a moment as if paralyzed be- 
neath the weight of these ideas, he tore himself away 
from his happiness and went home, unable either to 
eat or sleep. 

The next day he entered his studio, and did not leave 
it again until he had placed on canvas the magic charm 
of a scene the mere recollection of which had, as it were, 
laid a spell upon him. But his happiness was incom- 
plete so long as he did not possess a faithful portrait of 
his idol. Many a time he passed before the house of 
the Cat-playing-ball ; he even entered the shop once 
or twice on some pretext to get a nearer view of the 
ravishing creature who was alway’S covered by Madame 


26 


Fame and Sorrow. 


Guillaume’s wing. For eight whole months, given up 
to his love and to his brushes, he was invisible to his 
friends, even to his intimates ; he forgot all, — poetry, 
the theatre, music, and his most cherished habits. 

One morning Girodet the painter forced his way in, 
eluding all barriers as onl}' artists can, and woke him 
up with the inquiry, “ What are you going to send to 
the Salon?” 

The artist seized his friend’s arm, led him to the 
studio, uncovered a little easel picture, and also a por- 
trait. After a slow and eager examination of the two 
masterpieces, Girodet threw his arms around his friend 
and kissed him, without finding words to speak. His 
feelings could onl3" be uttered as he felt them, — soul 
to soul. 

“You love her ! ” he said at last. 

Both knew that the noblest portraits of Titian, Raf- 
faeile, and Leonardo da Vinci are due to exalted human 
feelings, which, under so maiw diverse conditions, have 
given birth to the masterpieces of art. For all answer 
the 3"oung painter bowed his head. 

“How fortunate, how happy 3’ou are to be able to 
love here, in Paris, after leaving Ital}^ I can’t advise 
3"ou to send such works as those to the Salon,” added 
the distinguished painter. “ You see, such pictures 
cannot be felt there. Those absolutel3" true colors, 
that stupendous labor, will not be understood ; the 


Fame and Sorrow, 


21 


public is no longer able to see into such depths. The 
pictures we paint now-a-days, dear friend, are mere 
screens for decoration. Better make verses, say I, 
and translate the ancients, — we shall get a truer fame 
that way than our miserable pictures will ever bring 
us.” 

But in spite of this friendly advice the two pictures 
were exhibited. That of the interior made almost a 
revolution in art. It gave birth to the fashion of genre 
pictures which since that time have so filled our exhi- 
bitions that one might almost believe they were produced 
b}’ some mechanical process. As to the portrait, there 
are few living artists who do not cherish the memory of 
that breathing canvas on which the general public, occa- 
sionall}’ just in its judgment, left the crown of praise 
which Girodet himself placed there. 

The two pictures were surrounded by crowds. People 
killed themselves, as women s&y, to look at them. Spec- 
ulators and great lords would have covered both can- ' 
vases with double-napoleons, but the artist obstinately 
refused to sell them, declining also to make copies. 
He was offered an immense sum if he would allow them 
to be engraved ; but the dealers were no more success- 
ful than the amateurs. Though this aflTair engrossed 
the social world, it was not of a nature to penetrate the 
depths of Egyptian solitude in the rue Saint-Denis. It 
so chanced, however, that the wife of a notary, paying 


28 


Fame and Sorrow, 


a visit to Madame Guillaume, spoke of the exhibition 
before Augustine, of whom she was very fond, and 
explained what it was. Madame Roguin’s chatter nat- 
urally inspired Augustine with a desire to see the pict- 
ures, and with the boldness to secretlj^ ask her cousin 
to take her to the Louvre. Madame Roguin succeeded 
in the negotiation she undertook with Madame Guil- 
laume, and was allowed to take her little cousin from 
her daily tasks for the short space of two hours. 

Thus it was that the young girl, passing through the 
crowd, stood before the famous picture. A quiver 
made her tremble like a birch- leaf when she recognized 
her own self. She was frightened, and looked about 
to rejoin Madame Roguin, from whom the crowd had 
parted her. At that instant her eyes encountered 
the flushed face of the j’oung painter. She suddenly 
remembered a man who had frequently passed the shop 
and whom she had often remarked, thinking he was 
some new neighbor. 

“ You see there the inspiration of love,” said the ar- 
tist in a whisper to the timid creature, who was terrified 
by his words. 

She summoned an almost supernatural courage to 
force her way through the crowd and rejoin her 
cousin. 

“ You will be suffocated,” cried Augustine. “ Do let 
us go ! ” 


Fame and Sorrow, 


29 


But there are certain moments at the Salon when 
two women are not able to move freel}' through the 
galleries. Mademoiselle Guillaume and her cousin were 
blocked and pushed by the swaying crowd to within 
a few feet of the second picture. The exclamation of 
surprise uttered by Madame Roguin w^as lost in the 
noises of the room ; but Augustine involuntarily wept 
as she looked at the marvellous scene. Then, with a 
feeling that is almost inexplicable, she put her finger on 
her lips as she saw the ecstatic face of the 3’oung artist 
within two feet of her. He replied with a motion of 
his head toward Madame Roguin, as if to show Augus- 
tine that he understood her. This pantomime threw a 
fire of burning coals into the being of the poor girl, 
who felt she was criminal in thus allowing a secret com. 
pact between herself and the unknown artist. The stif- 
ling heat, the sight of the brilliant dresses, a giddiness 
which the wonderful combinations of color produced in 
her, the multitude of figures, living and painted, which 
surrounded her, the profusion of gold frames, — all 
gave her a sense of intoxication which redoubled her 
terrors. She might have fainted if there had not welled 
up from the depths of her heart, in spite of this chaos 
of sensations, a mysterious joy which vivified her 
whole being. Still, she fancied she was under the do- 
minion of that demon whose dreadful snares were threats 
held out to her by the thundered words of the preach- 


30 


Fame and Sorrow. 


ers. The moment seemed like one of actual madness 
to her. She saw she was accompanied to her cousin’s 
carriage by the mysterious young man, resplendent 
with love and happiness. A new and unknown excite- 
ment possessed her, an intoxication which delivered 
her, as it were, into the hands of Nature ; she listened 
to the eloquent voice of her own heart, and looked at 
the young painter several times, betraying as she did 
so the agitation of her thoughts. Never had the carna- 
tion of her cheeks formed a more charming contrast to 
the whiteness of her skin. The artist then beheld that 
beauty in its perfect flower, that virgin modesty in all 
its gloiy. 

Augustine became conscious of a sort of joy mingling 
with her terror as she thought how her presence had 
brought happiness to one whose name w'as on eveiy lip 
and whose talent had given immortality to a passing 
scene. Yes, she was beloved ! sne could not doubt it ! 
When she ceased to see him, his words still sounded in 
her ear : “ You see the inspiration of love ! ” The pal- 
pitations of her heart were painful, so violently did the 
now ardent blood awaken unknown forces in her being. 
She complained of a severe headache to avoid replying 
to her cousin’s questions about the pictures ; but when 
they reached home, Madame Roguin could not refrain 
from telling Madame Guillaume of the celebrity given to 
the establishment of the Cat-playing-ball, and Augus- 


Fame and Sorrow, 


31 


tine trembled in every limb as she heard her mother 
say she should go to the Salon and see her own house. 
Again the young girl complained of her headache, and 
received permission to go to bed. 

“That’s what you get by going to shows!” ex- 
claimed Monsieur Guillaume. “Headaches! Is it so 
very amusing to see a picture of what you see ever}’’ 
daj^ in the street ? Don’t talk to me of artists ; they are 
like authors, — half-starved beggars. Why the devil 
should that fellow choose my house to villify in his 
picture ? ” 

“ Perhaps it will help to sell some of our cloth,” said 
Joseph Lebas. 

That remark did not save art and literature from 
being once more arraigned and condemned before the 
tribunal of commerce. It will be readily believed that 
such discourse brought little encouragement to Augus- 
tine, who gave herself up in the night-time to the first 
re very of love. The events of the day were like those 
of a dream which she delighted to reproduce in thought. 
She learned the fears, the hopes, the remorse, all those 
undulations of feeling which rock a heart as simple and 
timid as hers. What a void she felt within that gloomy 
house, what a treasure she found within her soul ! To 
be the wife of a man of talent, to share his fame ! 
Imagine the havoc such a thought would make in the 
lieart of a child brought up in the bosom of such a fain- 


82 


Fame and Sorrow. 


ily ! What hopes would it not awaken in a girl who 
lived among the vulgarities of life, and yet longed for 
its elegancies. A beam of light had come into her 
prison. Augustine loved, loved suddenl3\ So many 
repressed feelings were gratified that she succumbed at 
once, without an instant’s reflection. At eighteen love 
flings its prism between the world and the eyes of a 
maiden. Incapable of imagining the harsh experience 
which comes to every loving woman married to a man 
gifted with imagination, she fancied herself called to 
make the happiness of such a man, seeing no disparity 
between them. For her the present was the whole 
future. 

When Monsieur and Madame Guillaume returned the 
next day from the Salon, their faces announced disap- 
pointment and anno3’ance. In the first place, the artist 
had withdrawn the picture ; in the next, Madame Guil- 
laume had lost her cashmere shawl. The news that the 
pictures had been withdrawn after her visit to the Salon 
was to Augustine the revelation of a delicacy’ of senti- 
ment which all women appreciate, if only instinctively’. 

The morning on which, returning from a ball, Theo- 
dore de Sommervieux (such was the name which cele- 
brity^ had now placed in Augustine’s heart), was 
showered with soapy water by the clerks of the Cat- 
playing-ball, as he awaited the apparition of his in- 
nocent beauty, — who certainty did not know he was 


Fame and Sorrow, 


33 


there, — was only the fourth occasion of their seeing 
each other since that first meeting at the Salon. The 
obstacles which the iron s^'stem of the house of Guil- 
laume placed in the way of the ardent and impetuous 
nature of the artist, added a violence to his passion for 
Augustine, which will be readily understood. How ap- 
proach a young girl seated behind a counter between 
two such women as Mademoiselle Virginie and Madame 
Guillaume? How was it possible to correspond with 
lier if her mother never left her? Ready, like all 
lovers, to invent troubles for himself, Theodore se- 
lected a rival among the clerks, and suspected the 
otliers of being in their comrade's interests. If he 
escaped their Argus eyes he felt he should succumb to 
the stern glances of the old merchant or Madame Guil- 
laume. Obstacles on all sides, despair on all sides ! 
•The very violence of his passion prevented the young 
man from inventing those clever expedients which, in 
lovers as well as in prisoners, seem to be crowning 
efforts of intellect roused either by a savage desire for 
liberty or by the ardor of love. Then Theodore would 
rush round the corner like a madman, as if movement 
alone could suggest a wa}" out of the difficultj". 

. After allowing his imagination to torment him for 
weeks, it came into his head to bribe the chubby 
servant-girl. A^few letters were thus exchanged during 

the fortnight which followed the unlucky morning when 

8 


34 


Fame and Sorrow. 


Monsieur Guillaume and Theodore had first met. The 
loving pair had now agreed to see each other dail}’ at a 
certain hour, and on Sunday at the church of Saint- 
Leu, during both mass and vespers. Augustine had 
sent her dear Theodore a list of the friends and rela- 
tives of the family to whom the young painter was 
to gain access. He was then to endeavor to inter- 
est in his loving cause some one of those mone}"- 
making and commercial souls to whom a real passion 
would otherwise seem a monstrous and unheard-of 
speculation. 

In other respects nothing happened and no change 
took place in the habits of the Cat-pla3’ing-ball. If 
Augustine was absent-minded ; if, against ever}^ law 
of the domestic charter, she went up to her bedroom 
to make the signals under cover of the fiower-pots ; 
if she sighed, if she brooded, — no one, not even her 
mother, found it out. This may cause some surprise 
to those who have understood the spirit of the house- 
hold, where a single idea tinged with poetry’ would have 
contrasted sharply with the beings and with the things 
therein contained, and where no one was able to give a 
look or gesture that was not seen and analj^zed. And 
3^et, as it happened, nothing was really more natural. 
The tranquil vessel which navigated the seas of Parisian 
commerce under the flag of the Cat-playing-ball, was at 
this particular moment tossed about in one of those 


Fame and Sorrow, 


85 


storms which may be called equinoctial, on account of 
their periodical return. 

For the last fifteen days the five men of the establish- 
ment, with Madame Guillaume and Mademoiselle Vir- 
ginie, had devoted themselves to that severe toil which 
goes by the name of “ taking an inventor3\*^ All bales 
were undone, and the length of each piece of goods was 
measured, to learn the exact value of what remained on 
hand. The card attached to each piece was carefully 
examined to know how long the different goods had 
been in stock. New prices were affixed. Monsieur 
Guillaume, always standing up, yard-measure in hand, 
his pen behind his ear, was like a captain in command 
of a ship. His sharp voice, passing down a hatch wa}^ 
to the ware-rooms below, rang out that barbarous 
jargon of commerce expressed in enigmas: “How 
man}’ H-N-Z?” “ Take it awa}^ ! ” “ How much left 

of Q-X?^* “Two yards.” “What price?” “Five- 
five-three.” “ Put at three A all J-J, all M-P, and the 
rest of V-D-O.” A thousand other such phrases, all 
equall}^ intelligible, resounded across the counters, like 
those verses of modern poetry which the romanticists 
recite to each other to keep up their enthusiasm for a 
favorite poet. At night Monsieur Guillaume locked 
himself and his head-clerk and his wife into the count- 
ing-room, went over the books, opened the new accounts, 
notified the dilatory debtors, and made out all bills. 


36 


Fame and Sorrow, 


The results of this immense toil, which could be noted 
down on one sheet of foolscap paper, proved to the 
house of Guillaume that it owned so much in mone3\ so 
much in merchandise, so much in notes and cheques ; 
also that it did not owe a sou, but that so raan^- hun- 
dred thousand francs were owing to it ; that its capital 
had increased ; that its farms, houses, and stocks were 
to be enlarged, repaired, or doubled. Hence came a 
sense of the necessity" of beginning once more with 
renewed ardor the accumulation of more mone}’ ; 
though none of these brave ants ever thought of ask- 
ing themselves, “What’s the good of it?” 

Thanks to this annual tumult, the happ}' Augustine 
was able to escape the observation of her Arguses. At 
last, one Saturday evening, the ‘ ‘ taking of the inven- 
torj"” was an accomplished fact. The figures of the 
total assets showed so man^’ ciphers that in honor of 
the occasion Monsieur Guillaume removed the stern 
embargo w’hich reigned throughout the 3’ear at des- 
sert. The sly old draper rubbed his hands and told the 
clerks they might remain at table. The3" had hardl3^ 
swallowed their little glass of a certain home-made 
liqueur, however, when carriage-wheels were heard in 
the street. The family were going to the Varietes to 
see “ Cinderella,” while the two 3'ounger clerks each 
received six francs and permission to go where they 
liked, provided the3' were at home by midnight. 


Fame and Sorrow, 


37 


The next morning, in spite of this debauch, the old 
merchant-draper shaved at six o’clock, put on his fine 
maroon coat, — the lustre of its cloth causing him, as 
usual, much satisfaction, — fastened his gold buckles to 
the knee-band of his ample silk breeches, and then, 
toward seven o’clock, while every one in the house was 
still asleep, he went to the little office adjoining the 
shop on the first floor. It was lighted by a window 
protected by thick iron bars, and looked out upon a lit- 
tle square court formed by walls so black that the place 
was like a well. The old merchant opened an inner 
blind that was clamped with iron, and raised a sash of 
the window. The chill air of the court cooled the hot 
atmosphere of the office, which exhaled an odor peculiar 
to all such places. Monsieur Guillaume remained stand- 
ing, one hand resting on the greasy arm of a cane-chair 
covered with morocco, the primitive color of which was 
now effaced ; he seemed to hesitate to sit down. The old 
man glanced with a softened air at the tall double desk, 
where his wife’s seat was arranged exactly opposite to 
his own, in a little arched alcove made in the wall. 
He looked at the numbered paper-boxes, the twine, the 
various utensils, the irons with which they marked the 
cloth, the safe, — all objects of immemorial origin, — 
and he fancied himself standing before the evoked shade 
of the late Chevrel. He pulled out the very stool on 
which he formerly sat in presence of his now defunct 


38 


Fame and Sorrow, 


master. That stool, covered with black leather, from 
which the horsehair had long oozed at the corners (but 
without falling out), he now placed with a trembling 
hand on the particular spot where his predecessor had 
once placed it ; then, with an agitation difficult to de- 
scribe, he pulled a bell which rang at the bed’s head of 
Joseph Lebas. When that decisive deed was done, the 
old man, to whom these memories may have been op- 
pressive, took out three or four bills of exchange which 
had been presented to him the da}’ before, and was 
looking them over, but without seeing them, when 
Joseph Lebas entered the office. 

“ Sit there,” said Monsieur Guillaume, pointing to 
the stool. 

As the old master-draper had never before allowed a 
clerk to sit in his presence, Joseph trembled. 

“ What do you think of these drafts? ” asked Guil- 
laume. 

“ They willnot be paid.” 

“Why not?” 

“ I heard yesterday that Etienne and Company were 
making their payments in gold.” 

“ Ho ! ho ! ” cried the draper. “ The}’ must be very 
ill to show their bile. Let us talk of something else, 
Joseph; the inventory is finished?” 

“ Yes, monsieur, and the dividend is the finest you 
have ever had.” 


Fame and Sorrow, 


39 


“Pray don’t use those new-fangled words. Sa}^ 
‘proceeds,’ Joseph. Do you know, my bo}’, that we 
owe that result partly to you? Therefore, I do not 
wish you to have a salary any longer. Madame Guil- 
laume has put it into my head to offer 3’ou a share in 
the business. He}^ Joseph, what do 3’ou saj’ ? ‘Guil- 
laume and Lebas,’ — don’t the names make a fine part- 
nership ? and we can add ‘ and Company ’ to complete 
the signature.” 

Tears came into Joseph’s eyes, though he tried to 
hide them. “ Ah, Monsieur Guillaume,” he said, “ how 
have I deserved such goodness ? I have onl}' done my 
dut}*. It was enough that 3’ou should even take an 
interest in a poor orph — ” 

He brushed the cuff of his left sleeve with his right 
sleeve, and dared not look at the old man, who smiled 
as he thought that this modest 3'oung fellow no doubt 
needed, as he himself once needed, to be helped and 
encouraged to make the explanation complete. 

“ It is true, Joseph,” said Virginie’s father, “ that 
3’ou do not quite deserve that favor. You do not put 
as much confidence in me as I do in 3'ou” (here the 
clerk looked up hurriedly). “You know my secrets. 
For the last two 3^ears I have told j’ou all about the 
business. I have sent 3’ou travelling to the manufac- 
tories. I have nothing to reproach m^’self with as to 
you. But you ! You have a liking in 3’our mind, and 


40 


Fame and Sorrow. 


3’ou have never said a word to me about it” (Joseph 
colored). Ha ! ha ! ” cried Guillaume, “ so you thought 
3 ou could deceive an old fox like me ? Me ! when 3’ou 
knew how I predicted the Lecocq failure ! ” 

“Oh, monsieur!” replied Joseph Lebas, examining 
his master as attentivel3’ as his master examined him, 
“ is it possible that 3'ou know whom I love? ” 

“ I know all, you good-for-nothing fellow,” said the 
worthy and astute old dealer, twisting the lobe of the 
young man’s ear ; “ and I forgive it, for I did as much 
myself.” 

“ Will 3’ou give her to me? ” 

“Yes, with a hundred and fift3' thousand francs, and 
I will leave you as much more ; and we will meet our 
new expenses under the new firm name. Yes, Iw, we 
will stir up the business finel3" and put new life into it,” 
cried the old merchant, rising and gesticulating with 
his arms. “ There is nothing like business, son-in-law. 
Those who sneer and ask what pleasures can be found 
in it are simply fools. To have the cue of mone3"-mat- 
ters, to know how to govern the market, to w^ait with 
the anxiety of gamblers till Etienne and Compan3’ fail, 
to see a regiment of Guards go by with our cloth on 
their backs, to trip up a neighbor, — honesth", of 
course, — to manufacture at a lower price than oth- 
ers, to follow up an affair when we ’ve planned it, to 
watch it begin, increase, totter, and succeed, to under- 


Fame and Sorrow. 


41 


stand, like the minister of police, all the ways and 
means of all the commercial houses so as to make no 
false step, to stand up straight when others are wrecked 
and ruined, to have friends and correspondents in all the 
manufacturing towns and cities — Ha, Joseph ! is n’t 
that perpetual pleasure ? I call that living ! Yes, and 
I shall die in that bustle like old Chevrel himself.” 

In the heat of his allocution Pere Guillaume scarcely 
looked at his clerk, who was weeping hot tears ; when 
he did so he exclaimed, “ Hey, Joseph, m^’^ poor bo}’, 
what is the matter ? ” 

“ Ah ! I love her so, Monsieur Guillaume, that m3’ 
heart fails me, I believe.” 

“Well, m3’ boy,” said the old man, quite moved, 
“you are happier than 3’ou think you are ; for, b3’ the 
powers, she loves you. I know it ; 3"es, I do ! ” 

And he winked his two little green e3’es as he looked 
at Joseph. 

“ Mademoiselle Augustine I Mademoiselle Augus- 
tine ! ” cried Joseph Lebas in his excitement. He was 
about to rush out of the office when he felt himself 
grasped by an iron arm, and his astonished master 
pulled him vigorousl3’ in front of him. 

“What has Augustine got to do with it?” asked 
Guillaume, in a voice that froze the unfortunate 3^oung 
man. 

“ It is she — whom — I love,” stammered the clerk. 


42 


Fame and Sorrow, 


Disconcerted at his own lack of perspicacity, Guil- 
laume sat down and put his pointed head into his two 
hands to reflect upon the queer position in which he 
found himself. Joseph Lebas, ashamed, mortified, and 
despairing, stood before him. 

“Joseph,” said the merchant, with cold dignity, “I 
was speaking to you of Virginie. Love is not to be 
commanded ; I know that. I trust your discretion ; 
we will forget the whole matter. I shall never allow 
Augustine to be married before Virginie. Your interest 
in the business will be ten per cent.” 

The head-clerk, in whom love inspired a mj’sterious 
degree of courage and eloquence, clasped his hands, 
opened his lips, and spoke to Guillaume for fifteen min- 
utes with such ardor and deep feeling that the situation 
changed. If the matter had concerned some business 
affair the old man would have had a fixed rule hr 
which to settle it ; but suddenly cast upon the' sea of 
feelings, a thousand miles from business and without a 
compass, he floated irresolutel}" before the wind of an 
event so “out of the wa}-,” as he kept sa3ing to him- 
self. Influenced b^' his natural paternal kindness, he 
was at the mere}" of the waves. 

“ He^”, the deuce, Joseph, j’ou know of course that 
my two children came with ten 3’ears between them. 
Mademoiselle Chevrel was not handsome, no ; but I 
never gave her any reason to complain of me. Do as 


Fame and Sorrow. 


43 


I did. Come, don’t fret, — what a goose you are I 
Perhaps we can manage it ; I’ll try. There ’s always 
some way to do a thing. We men are not exactly" 
Celadons to our wives, — you understand, don’t you? 
Madame Guillaume is pious, and — There, there, my 
you may give Augustine your arm this morning 
when we go to mass.” 

Such were the sentences which Pere Guillaume scat- 
tered at random. The last of them filled the lover’s 
soul with joy. He was alread}^ thinking of a friend 
who would do for Mademoiselle Virginie as he left the 
smoky office, after pressing the hand of his future 
father-in-law and saying, in a confidential way, that it 
would all come right. 

“What will Madame Guillaume say?” That idea 
was terribly harrassing to the worthy merchant when 
he found himself alone. 

At breakfast, Madame Guillaume and Virginie, whom 
the draper had left, provisionally, in ignorance of her 
disappointment, looked at Joseph with so much mean- 
ing that he became greatly embarrassed. His modesty 
won him the good-will of his future mother-in-law. 
The matron grew so lively that she looked at Monsieur 
Guillaume with a smile, and allowed herself a few little 
harmless pleasantries customary from time immemorial 
in such innocent families. She discussed the relative 
heights of Joseph and Virginie, and placed them side 


44 


Fame and Sorrow, 


by side to be measured. These little follies brought a 
cloud to the paternal brow ; in fact, the head of the 
family manifested such a sense of decorum that he 
ordered Augustine to take the arm of his head-clerk on 
their way to church. Madame Guillaume, surprised at 
so much masculine delicacy, honored her husband’s act 
with an approving nod. The procession left the house 
in an order that suggested no gossipping constructions 
to the neighbors. 

“Do you not think. Mademoiselle Augustine,” said 
the head-clerk in a trembling voice, “ that the wife of a 
merchant in high standing, like Monsieur Guillaume 
for example, ought to amuse herself rather more than 
— than your mother amuses herself ? She ought surely 
to wear diamonds, and have a carriage. As for me, if 
I should ever marry I should want to take all the cares 
myself, and see my wife happy ; I should not let her sit 
at any counter of mine. You see, women are no longer 
as much needed as they used to be in draper’s shops. 
Monsieur Guillaume was quite right to do as he did, and 
besides, Madame likes it. But if a wife knows how to 
help in making up the accounts at times, and looking 
over the correspondence ; if she can have an eye to a 
few details and to the orders, and manage her household, 
so as not to be idle, that ’s enough. As for me, 1 should 
always wish to amuse her after seven o’clock, when the 
shop is closed. I should take her to the theatre and 


Fame and Sorrow. 


45 


the picture galleries, and into society, — but you are not 
listening to me.” 

“ Oh, yes I am, Monsieur Joseph. What were you 
saying about painters? It is a noble art.” 

“ Yes, I know one, a master painter. Monsieur Lour- 
dois ; he makes money.” 

Thus conversing, the family reached Saint-Leu ; 
there, Madame Guillaume recovered her rights. She 
made Augustine, for the first time, sit beside her ; and 
Virginie took the fourth chair, next to that of Lebas. 
During the sermon all went well with Augustine and with 
Theodore, who stood behind a column and prayed to 
his madonna with great fervor ; but when the Host was 
raised, Madame Guillaume perceived, somewhat tardily, 
that her daughter Augustine was holding her prayer- 
book upside down. She was about to scold her vigor- 
0USI3’ when, suddenly raising her veil, she postponed 
her lecture and looked in the direction which her daugh- 
ter’s e^^es had taken. With the help of her spectacles, 
she then and there beheld the 3’oung ai’tist, whose 
fashionable clothes bespoke an officer of the army on 
furlough rather than a merchant belonging to the neigh- 
borhood. It is difficult to imagine the wrath of Madame 
Guillaume, who flattered herself she had brought up her 
daughters in perfect propriety, on detecting this clan- 
destine love in Augustine’s heart, the evils of which 
she magnified out of ignorance and prudery. She 


46 Fame and Sorrow, 

concluded instantly that her daughter was rotten to 
the core. 

“ In the first place, hold your book straight, made- 
moiselle,” she said in a low voice, but trembling with 
anger ; then she snatched the tell-tale prayer-book, and 
turned it the right way. “ Don^t dare to raise your 
eyes oflT those prayers,” she added ; “ otherwise you will 
answer for it to me. After service, your father and I 
will have something to say to 3’ou.” 

These words were like a thunderbolt to poor Augus- 
tine. She felt like fainting; but between the misery 
she endured and the fear of creating a disturbance in 
church, she gathered enough courage to hide her suffer- 
ing. Yet it was eas^’ enough to guess the commotion 
of her mind by the way the book shook in her hands 
and b^’ the tears which fell on the pages as she turned 
them. The artist saw, from the incensed look which 
Madame Guillaume flung at him, the perils which threat- 
ened his love, and he left the church with rage in his 
heart, determined to dare all. 

“Go to 3’our room, mademoiselle ! ” said Madame 
Guillaume when the3’ reached home. “ Don ’t dare to 
leave it ; you will be called when we want 3^011.” 

The conference of husband and wife was held in 
secret, and at first nothing transpired. But after a 
while Virginie, who had comforted her sister with 
many tender suggestions, carried her kindness so far 


Fame and Sorrow, 


4T 


as to slip down to the door of her mother’s bedroom, 
where the discussion was taking place, hoping to over- 
hear a few sentences. At her first trip from the third 
to the second floor she heard hei father exclaim, 
“Madame, do 3’ou wish to kill 3’our daughter?” 

“ My poor dear,” said Virginie, running back to her 
disconsolate sister, “ papa is defending 3’ou ! ” 

“ What will the3' do to Theodore ? ” asked the inno- 
cent little thing. 

Virginie went down again ; but this time she sta3*ed 
longer ; she heard that Lebas loved Augustine. 

It was decreed that on this memorable day that 
usually calm house should become a hell. Monsieur 
Guillaume brought Joseph Lebas to the verge of de- 
spair b3" informing him of Augustine’s attachment to 
the artist. Lebas, who b3" that time had met his friend 
and advised him to ask for Mademoiselle Virginie in 
marriage, saw all his hopes overthrown. Virginie, 
overcome by the discovery that Joseph had, as it 
were, refused her, was taken with a violent headache. 
And finally, the jar between husband and wife, result- 
ing from the explanation the3" had together, when for 
the third time only in their lives the3' held diflTerent 
opinions, made itself felt in a really dreadful manner. 
At last, about four o’clock in the afternoon Augus- 
tine, pale, trembling, and with red e3’es, was brought 
before her father and mother. The poor child related 


48 


Fame and Sorrow, 


artlessly the too brief story of her love. Reassured by 
her father, who promised to hear her through in silence, 
she gathered enough courage to utter the name of her 
dear Theodore de Sommervieux, dwelling with some 
diplomacy on the aristocratic particle. As she jdelded 
to the hitherto unknown delight of speaking out her 
feelings, she found courage to sa}’ with innocent bold- 
ness that she loved Monsieur de Sommervieux and had 
written to him, adding, with tears in her eyes : ‘‘It 
would make me unhappy for life to sacrifice me to any 
one else.” 

“ But Augustine, j’ou do not know what a painter is,” 
cried her mother, in horror. 

“ Madame Guillaume ! ” said the old father, imposing 
silence on his wife — “ Augustin^” he went on, “ artists 
are generally poor, half-starved creatures. They squan- 
der what they have, and are always worthless. I know, 
for the late Monsieur Joseph Vernet, the late Monsieur 
Lekain, and the late Monsieur Noverre were customers 
of mine. My dear, if you knew the tricks that very 
Monsieur Noverre, and Monsieur le chevalier de Saint- 
Gcorges, and above all. Monsieur Philidor pla3’ed upon 
my predecessor Fere Chevrel ! The^' are queer fellows, 
very queer. They all have a glib wa\^ of talking and 
fine manners. Now jrour Monsieur Sumer — Som — ” 

“ De Sommervieux, papa.” 

“ Well, so be it, — de Sommervieux, he never could 


Fame and Sorrow, 


49 


be as charming with you as Monsieur le chevalier de 
Saint-Georges was with me the day I obtained a con- 
sular sentence against him. That’s how it was with 
people of good-breeding in those days.” 

“ But papa, Monsieur Theodore is a nobleman, and 
he writes me that he is rich ; his father was called the 
Chevalier de Sommervieux before the Revolution.” 

At these words Monsieur Guillaume looked at his ter- 
rible better-half, who was tapping her foot and keeping 
a dead silence with the air of a thwarted woman ; she 
would not even cast her indignant e3’es at Augustine, 
and seemed determined to leave the whole responsi- 
bilitv' of the misguided affair to Monsieur Guillaume, 
inasmuch as her advice was not listened to. However, 
in spite of her apparent phlegm, she could not refrain 
from exclaiming, when she saw her husband playing 
such a gentle part in a catastrophe that was not com- 
mercial : “ Really, monsieur, you are as weak as 3’our 
daughter, but — ” 

The noise of a carriage stopping before the door in- 
terrupted the reprimand which the old merchant was 
dreading. A moment more, and Madame Roguin was 
in the middle of the room looking at the three actors in 
the domestic drama. 

“ I know all, cousin,” she said, with a patronizing 
air 

If Madame Roguin had a fault, it was that of think- 
4 


50 


Fame and Sorrow. 


ing that the wife of a Parisian notary could play the 
part of a great lady. 

“ I know all,” she repeated, “ and I come to Noah’s 
Ark like the dove, with an olive-branch, — I read that 
allegory in the ‘ Genius of Christianity,’ ” she remarked, 
turning to Madame Guillaume ; “ therefore the compari- 
son ought to please 3^011. Let me tell 3"ou,” she added, 
smiling at Augustine, “ that Monsieur de Sommervieux 
is a charming man. He brought me this morning a 
portrait of myself, done with a masterly hand. It is 
worth at least six thousand francs.” 

At these words she tapped lightly on Monsieur Guil- 
laume’s arm. The old merchant could not refrain from 
pushing out his lips in a manner that was peculiar to 
him. 

I know Monsieur de Sommervieux very well,” con- 
tinued the dove. “ For the last fortnight he has at- 
tended ni}" parties, and he is the present attraction of 
them. He told me all his troubles, and I am here on 
his behalf. I know that he adores Augustine, and is 
determined to have her. Ah ! m3^ dear cousin, don’t 
shake 3' our head. Let me tell you that he is about to 
be made a baron, and that the Emperor himself, on the 
occasion of his visit to the Salon, made him a cheva- 
lier of the Legion of honor. Roguin is now his notary 
and knows all his affairs. Well, I can assure 3*ou that 
Monsieur de Sommervieux has good, sound property 


Fame and Sorrow. 


51 


which brings him in twelve thousand a 3'ear. Now, the 
father-in-law of a man in his position might count on 
becoming something of importance, — mayor of the 
arrondissement, for instance. Don’t 3’ou remember 
how Monsieur Dupont was made count of the Empire 
and senator merel3’ because, as ma3'or, it was his duty 
to congratulate the Emperor on his entrance to Vienna? 
Yes, yes, this marriage must take place. I adore the 
3’oung man, m3’self. His behavior to Augustine is 
hardly met with now-a-da3's outside of a novel. Don’t 
fret, my dear child, 3*ou will be happy, and everybody 
will env3' 3^ou. There ’s the Duchesse de Carigliano, she 
comes to my parties and delights in Monsieur de Som- 
mervieux. Gossiping tongues do sa3’ she comes to my 
house onl3" to meet him, — just as if a duchess of yes- 
terda3^ was out of place in the salon of a Chevrel whose 
family can show a hundred years of good, sound bour- 
geoisie behind it. Augustine,” added Madame Ro- 
guin, after a slight pause, “ I have seen the portrait. 
Heavens ! it is lovely. Did you know the Emperor 
had asked to see it? He said, laughing, to the vice- 
chamberlain, that if he had many women like that 
at his court so man3' kings would flock there that he 
could easily keep the peace of Europe. Was n’t that 
flattering? ” 

The domestic storms with which the day began were 
something like those of nature, for the3^ were followed 


52 


Fame and Sorrow, 


by calm and serene weather. Madame Rognin’s argu- 
ments were so seductive, she managed to pull so many 
cords in the withered hearts of Monsieur and Madame 
Guillaume that she at least found one which enabled her 
to carry the day. At this singular period of our na- 
tional histor}^ commerce and finance were to a greater 
degree than ever before possessed with an insane desire 
to all}’ themselves with the nobility, and the generals 
of the Empire profited immensel}’ b}^ this sentiment. 
Monsieur, Guillaume, however, was remarkable for his 
opposition to this curious passion. His favorite axioms 
were that if a woman wanted happiness she ought to 
many a man of her own class ; that persons were al- 
ways sooner or later punished for trying to climb too 
high ; that love could ill endure the petty annoyances of 
home-life, and that persons should look only for solid 
virtues in each other ; that neither of the married pair 
should know more than the other, because the first 
requisite was complete mutual understanding ; and that 
a husband who spoke Greek and a wife who spoke 
Latin would be certain to die of hunger. He promul- 
gated that last remark as a sort of proverb. He com- 
pared marriages thus made to those old-fashioned stuffs 
of silk and wool in which the silk always ended by wear- 
ing out the wool. And yet, there was so much vanity 
at the bottom of his heart that the prudence of the pilot 
who had guided with such wisdom the affairs of the 


. Fame and Sorrow, 


63 


Cat- playing-ball succumbed to the aggressive volubil- 
it}’ of Madame Roguin. The stern Madame Guillaume 
was the first to derogate from her principles and to find 
in her daughter’s inclinations an excuse for so doing. 
She consented to receive Monsieur de Sommervieux at 
her house, resolving in her own mind to examine him 
rigorously. 

The old merchant went at once to find Joseph Lebas 
and explain to him the situation of things. At half- 
past six that evening the dining-room immortalized by 
the painter contained under its skylight Monsieur and 
Madame Roguin, the young artist and his charming 
Augustine, Joseph Lebas, who found his comfort in sub- 
mission, and Mademoiselle Virginie, whose headache 
had disappeared. Monsieur and Madame Guillaume 
beheld in perspective the establishment of both their 
daughters, and the certainty that the fortunes of the 
Cat-playing-ball were likely to pass into good hands. 
Their satisfaction was at its height when, at dessert, 
Theodore presented to them the marvellous picture, 
representing the interior of the old shop (which they 
had not yet seen), to which was due the happiness of 
all present. 

“ Is n’t it pretty ! ” cried Monsieur Guillaume ; “ and 
the}" give you thirty thousand francs for it?” 

“ Why, there are my lappets ! ” exclaimed Madame 
Guillaume. 


54 


Fame and Sorrow, . 


“And the goods unfolded!” added Lebas ; “you 
might take them in 3^our hand.” 

“ All kinds of stuffs are good to paint,” replied the 
painter. “We should be only too happy, we modern 
artists, if we could approach the perfection of ancient 
draperies.” 

“Ha! so 3'ou like drapery?” cried Pere Guillaume. 
“ Shake hands, m3' 3'oung friend. If 3'ou value com- 
merce we shall soon understand each other. Why, in- 
deed, should persons despise it? The world began 
widi trade, for did n’t Adam sell Paradise for an 
apple? It did not turn out a ver3' good speculation, 
b3' the bye ! ” 

And the old merchant burst into a heart3' laugh, ex- 
cited b3" the champagne which he was circulating liber- 
all3'. The bandage over the e3'es of the 3'oung lover 
was so thick that he thought his new parents very 
agreeable. He was not above amusing them with a 
few little caricatures, all in good taste. He pleased 
every one. Later, when the part3’^ had dispersed, and 
the salon, furnished in a way that was “rich and 
warm,” to use the draper’s own expression, was de- 
serted, and while Madame Guillaume was going about 
from table to table and from candelabra to candlestick, 
hastily blowing out the lights, the worthy merchant 
who could see clearly enough when it was a question 
of money or of business, called his daughter Augus- 


Fame and Sorrow, 55 

tine, and, placing her on his knee, made her the 
following harangue : — 

“ My dear child, you shall marr}* 5’oiir Sommervienx 
since 3’ou wish it ; I give 3’^ou permission to risk 3’our 
capital of happiness. But I am not taken in b3’ those 
thirt3’ thousand francs, said to be earned by’ spoiling 
good canvas. Money that comes so quickly goes as 
quickly. Didn’t I hear that young scatterbrain say this 
ver3’ evening that if money was coined round it was 
meant to roll? Ha! if it is round for spendthrifts, it 
is flat for economical folks who pile it up. Now, my 
child, your handsome 3'outh talks of giving 3’ou car- 
riages and diamonds. If he has mone3’ and chooses 
to spend it on you, bene sit ; I have nothing to say. 
But as to what I shall give 3^ou, I don’t choose that any 
of m3" hard-earned money shall go for carriages and 
trumpery. He who spends too much is never rich. 
Your dowr3’ of three hundred thousand francs won’t 
bu3" all Paris, let me tell you ; and you need n’t reckon 
on a few hundred thousand more, for I’ll make you 
wait for them a long time yet, God willing I So I took 
3’Our lover into a corner and talked to him ; and a man 
who manoeuvred the failure of Lecocq did n’t have much 
trouble in getting an artist to agree that his wife’s prop- 
ert3" should be settled on herself. I shall have an eye 
to the contract and see that he makes the proper settle- 
ments upon 3’OU. Now, my dear, I hope y’ou ’ll make 


56 


Fame and Sorrow, 


me a grandfather, and for that reason, faith, I ’ra be- 
ginning to think about m3’ grandchildren. Swear to me, 
therefore, that you will not sign an\’ paper about money 
without first consulting me ; and if I should go to rejoin 
Pere Chevrel too soon, promise me to consult Lebas, 
who is to be 3’our brother-in-law. Will 3’ou promise 
and swear these two things?” 

“ Oh, 3’es, papa, I swear it.” 

At the words, uttered in a tender voice, the old man 
kissed his daughter on both cheeks. That night all the 
lovers slept as peacefully as Monsieur and Madame 
Guillaume. 

A few months after that memorable Sunda3’ the high 
altar of Saint-Leu witnessed two marriages ver3- unlike 
each other, Augustine and Theodore approached it 
beaming with happiness, their e3’es full of love, ele- 
ganth’ attired, and attended b3’ a brilliant companj’. 
Virginie, leaning on the arm of her father, followed 
her \’Oung sister in humbler guise, like a shadow needed 
for the harmony of the picture. Monsieur Guillaume 
had taken infinite pains to so arrange the wedding that 
Virginie’s marriage should take precedence of Augus- 
tine’s ; but he had the grief of seeing that tlie higher 
and lesser clerg}^ one and all addressed the 3’ounger 
and more elegant of the brides first. He overheard 
some of his neighbors highly commending Mademoiselle 


Fame and Sorrow. 


57 


Virginie’s good sense in making, as they said, a solid 
marriage and remaining faithful to “ the quarter ; and 
he also overheard a few sneers, prompted by env}*, 
about Augustine who had chosen to marry an artist, a 
nobleman, coupled with a pretended fear that if the 
Guillaumes w^ere becoming ambitious the draper’s trade 
was ruined. When an old dealer in fans declared that 
the young spendthrift would soon bring bis wife to 
poverty. Monsieur Guillaume congratulated himself in 
'petto for his prudence as to the marriage settlements. 

That night, after an elegant ball followed by one of 
those sumptuous suppers that are almost forgotten by 
the present generation. Monsieur and Madame Guil- 
laume remained at a house belonging to them in the rue 
du Colombier, where the wedding party took place, and 
where they intended to live in future ; Monsieur and 
Madame Lebas returned in a hired coach to the rue 
Saint-Denis and took the helm of the Cat-playing-ball ; 
while the artist, intoxicated with his happiness, caught 
his dear Augustine in his arms as their coupe reached 
t^ rue des Trois-Freres, and carried her to an apart- 
ment decorated with the treasures of all the arts. 

The raptures of passion to which Theodore now de- 
livered himself up carried the young household through 
one whole year without a single cloud to dim the blue 
of the sky beneath which they lived. To such lovers 
existence brought no burden ; each day some new and 


58 


Fame and Sorrow. 


exquisite jioriture of pleasure were evolved by Theo- 
dore, who delighted in varying the transports of love 
with the soft languor of those moments of repose when 
souls float upward into ecstasy and there forget cor- 
poreal union. Augustine, wholly incapable of reflec- 
tion, gave herself up to the undulating current of her 
happiness ; she felt she could not yield too much to 
the sanctioned and sacred love of marriage ; simple 
and artless, she knew nothing of the coquetry of denial, 
still less of the ascendency a young girl of rank obtains 
over a husband bj’ clever caprices ; she loved too well 
to calculate the future, and never once imagined that 
so enchanting a life could come to an end. Happy in 
being all the life and all the jo}’ of her husband, she 
believed his inextinguishable love would forever crown 
her with the noblest of wreaths, just as her devotion 
and her obedience would remain a perpetual attraction. 
In fact, the felicity of love had made her so brilliant that 
her beauty filled her with pride and inspired her with a 
sense that she could alwa3"s reign over a man so easy 
to impassion as Monsieur de Sommervieux. Thus her 
womanhood gave her no other instructions than those 
of love. In the bosom of her happiness she was still 
the ignorant little girl who lived obscurely in the rue 
Saint-Denis, with no thought of acquiring the manners, 
or the education, or the tone of the world in which she 
was to live. Her words were the words of love, and 


Fame and Sorrow. 


59 


there, indeed, she did displa}^ a certain suppleness of 
mind and delicac}^ of expression ; but she was using a 
language common to all womankind when plunged into 
a passion which seems their element. If, by chance, 
Augustine gave utterance to some idea that jarred with 
those of Theodore, the artist laughed, just as we laugh 
at the first mistakes of a stranger speaking our lan- 
guage, though they weary us if not corrected. 

In spite of all this ardent love, Sommervieux felt, at 
the end of a year as enchanting as it had been rapid, 
the need of going back to his work and his old habits. 
Moreover, his wife was enceinte. He renewed his rela- 
tions with his friends. During the long year of physical 
suffering, when, for the first time, a young wife carries 
and nurses an infant, he worked, no doubt, with ardor ; 
but occasionally he returned for some amusement to the 
distractions of societ}*. The house to which he pre- 
ferred to go was that of the Duchesse de Carigliano, 
who had finally attracted the now celebrated artist to 
her parties. 

When Augustine recovered, and her son no longer 
required assiduous cares which kept his mother from 
social life, Theodore had reached a point where self- 
love roused in him a desire to appear before the world 
with a beautiful woman whom all men should envy and 
admire. The delight of showing herself in fashionable 
salons decked with the fame she derived from her hus- 


60 


Fame and Sorrow. ' 


band, vas to Augustine a new harvest of pleasures, but 
it was also the last that conjugal happiness was to bring 
her. 

She began by offending her husband’s vanity ; for, in 
spite of all his efforts, her ignorance, the incorrectness 
of her language, and the narrowness of her ideas, viewed 
from the standpoint of her present surroundings, were 
manifest. The character of de Sommervieux, held in 
check for nearly two years and a half by the first trans- 
ports of love, now took, under the calm of a possession 
no longer fresh, its natural bent, and he returned to the 
habits which had for a time been diverted from their 
course. Poetry, painting, and the exquisite enjoyments 
of the imagination possess inalienable rights over minds 
that can rise to them. These needs had not been balked 
in Theodore during those two and a half years ; they 
had simply found another nourishment. When the 
fields of love were explored, when the artist, like the 
children, had gathered the roses and the wake-robins 
with such eagerness that he did not notice his hands 
were full, the scene changed. It now happened that 
when the artist showed his wife a sketch of his most 
beautiful compositions, he took notice that she answered, 
in the tone of Monsieur Guillaume, Oh, how pretty ! ” 
Such admiration, without the slightest warmth, did not 
come, he felt, from an inward feeling, it was the ex- 
pression of blind love. Augustine preferred a glance 


Fame and Sorrow, 


61 


of love to the noblest work of art. The only sublimity 
she was able to perceive was that in her own heart. 

At last Theodore could not blind himself to the evi- 
ih'iice of a bitter truth ; his wife had no feeling for 
poetry ; she could not live in his sphere of thought ; 
she could not follow in the flight of his caprices, his 
impulses, his joys, his sorrows ; she walked the earth 
in a real world, while his head sought the heavens. 
Ordinary minds cannot appreciate the ever-springing 
sufferings of one who, being united to another b}’ the 
closest of all ties, is compelled to drive back within his 
own soul the precious overflow of his thoughts, and to 
crush into nothingness the images which some magic 
force compels him to create. To such a one the tor- • 
ture is the more cruel when his feeling for his com- 
panion commands him, as his first dut}*, to keep nothing 
from her, neither the outcome of his thoughts nor the 
effusions of his soul. The will of nature is not to be 
evaded ; it is inexorable, like necessitj^'which is, as it 
were, a sort of social law. Sommervieux took refuge in 
the silence and solitude of his studio, hoping that the 
habit of living among artists might train his wife and 
develop the benumbed germs of mind which all superior 
souls believe to exist in other souls. 

But, alas, Augustine was too sincerely religious not . 
to be frightened at the tone of the artist-world. At the 
first dinner given by Theodore, a 3’oung painter said to 


62 


Fame and Sorrow, 


her, with a juvenile light-heartedness she was unable to 
understand, but which really absolves all jests about 
religion : “ Why, madame, your paradise is not as 
glorious as Raffaelle’s Transfiguration, but I get a little 
tired of looking even at that.” Augustine, conse- 
quentl}', met this brilliant and artistic society in a 
spirit of disapproval, which was at once perceived. 
She became a constraint upon it. When artists are 
constrained they are pitiless ; they either or they 
sta}" and scoff. 

Madame Guillaume had, among other absurdities, 
that of magnifying the dignity she considered to be 
an appanage of a married woman ; and though Augus- 
tine had often laughed about it she was unable to keep 
herself from a slight imitation of the maternal prudery. 
This exaggeration of purity, which virtuous women do 
not always escape, gave rise to a few harmless carica- 
tures and epigrams, innocent nonsense in good taste, 
with which de Sommervieux could scarcely be angry. 
In fact, such jests were only reprisals on the part of his 
friends. Still, nothing could be really a jest to a soul 
so ready as that of Theodore to receive impressions 
from without. Thus he was led, perhaps insensibly, 
to a coldness of feeling which went on increasing. 
Whoso desires to reach perfect conjugal happiness 
must climb a mountain along a narrow way close to 
a sharp and slippery precipice; down that precipice 


Fame and Sorrow, 


63 


the artist’s love now slid. He believed his wife in- 
capable of understanding the moral considerations 
which justified, to his mind, the course he now adopted 
towards her ; and he thought himself innocent in hid- 
ing thoughts she could not comprehend, and in doing 
acts which could never be justified before the tribunal 
of her commonplace conscience. 

Augustine retired into gloomy and silent sorrow. 
These secret feelings drew a veil between the married 
pair which grew thicker day by day. Though her hus- 
band did not cease his attentions to her, Augustine 
could not keep from trembling when she saw him reserv- 
ing for society the treasures of mind and charm which 
he had hitherto bestowed on her. Soon she took 
fatally to heart the lively talk she heard in the world 
about man’s inconstancy. She made no complaint, but 
her whole bearing was equivalent to a reproach. Three 
3^ears after her marriage this ^-oung and pretty woman, 
who seemed so brilliant in her brilliant equipage, who 
lived in a sphere of fame and wealth, always envied by 
careless and unobserving people who never rightly esti- 
mate the situations of life, was a prey to bitter grief ; 
her color faded ; she reflected, she compared ; and then, 
at last, sorrow revealed to her the axioms of experience. 

She resolved to maintain herself courageousl}' within 
the circle of her duty, hoping that such generous con- 
duct would, sooner or later, win back her husband’s 


64 


Fame and Sorrow. 


love ; but it was not to be. When Sommervieux, tired 
of work, left his studio, Augustine never hid her work 
so quickly that the artist did not see her mending the 
household linen or his own with the minute care of a good 
housekeeper. She supplied, generousl3’ and without a 
word, the money required for her husband’s extrava- 
gances ; but in her desire to save her dear Theodore’s 
own fortune she was too economical on herself and on 
certain details of the housekeeping. Such conduct is 
incompatible with the free and easj" wa3's of artists, 
who, when they reach the end of their tether, have 
enjo3'ed life so much that the3^ never ask the reason 
of their ruin. 

It is useless to note each lowered tone of color 
through which the brillianc3’ of their hone3'moon faded 
and then expired, leaving them in deep darkness. 
One evening poor Augustine, who had lately heard her 
husband speaking with enthusiasm of the Duchesse de 
Carigliano, received some ill-natured information on the 
nature of de Sommervieux’s attachment to that cele- 
brated coquette of the imperial court. At twent3’-one, 
in the glow of 3"Outh and beaut3", Augustine learned she 
was betrayed for a woman of thirt3’-six. Feeling herself 
wretched in the midst of society and oi fetes that were 
now a desert to her, the poor little creature no longer 
noticed the admiration she excited nor the envy she in- 
spired. Her face took another expression. Sorrow laid 


Fame and Sorrow, 


65 


upon each feature the gentleness of resignation and the 
pallor of rejected love. It was not long before men, 
known for their seductive powers, courted her ; but she 
remained solitaiy and virtuous. A few contemptuous 
words which escaped her husband brought her to intol- 
erable despair. Fatal gleams of light now showed her 
the points where, through the pettiness of her educa- 
tion, complete union between her soul and that of 
Theodore had been prevented ; and her love was great 
enough to absolve him and blame herself. She wept 
tears of blood as she saw, too late, that there are ill- 
assorted marriages of minds as well as of habits and of 
ranks. 

Thinking over the spring-tide happiness of their 
union, she comprehended the fulness of her past 
joj's, and admitted to her own soul that so rich a 
harvest of love was indeed a lifetime which might 
well be paid for b}* her present sorrow. And jet she 
loved with too single a mind to lose all hope ; and she 
was brave enough at one-and-twentj* to endeavor to 
educate herself and make her imagination more worth}’ 
of the one she so admired. “If I am not a poet,” she 
said in her heart, “at least I will understand poetiy.” 
Employing that force of will and energy which all 
women possess when the}’ love, Madame de Sommer- 
vieux attempted to change her nature, her habits, and 
her ideas ; but though she read many volumes and 

5 


66 


Fame and Sorrow, 


studied with the utmost courage, she only succeeded in 
making herself less ignorant. Quickness of mind and 
the charms of conversation are gifts of nature or the 
fruits of an education begun in the cradle. She could 
appreciate music and enjoy it, but she could not sing 
with taste. She understood literature and even the 
beauties of poetry, but it was too late to train her re- 
bellious memory. She listened with interest to con- 
versation in society, but she contributed nothing to it. 
Her religious ideas and the prejudices of her earl3^ 
youth prevented the complete emancipation of her mind. 
And besides all this, a bias against her which she could 
not conquer had, little b}" little, glided into her hus- 
band’s mind. The artist laughed in his heart at those 
who praised his wife to him, and his laughter was not 
unfounded. Embarrassed b}' her strong desire to please 
him, she felt her mind and her knowledge melt awa^^ in 
his presence. Even her fidelit}^ displeased the unfaith- 
ful husband ; it seemed as though he would fain see 
her guilty of wrong when he complained of her virtue as 
unfeeling. Augustine struggled hard to abdicate her 
reason, to yield and bend to the fancies and caprices of 
her husband, and to devote her whole life to soothe the 
egotism of his vanit}", — she never gathered the fruit of 
her sacrifices. Perhaps the}^ had each let the moment 
go by when souls can comprehend each other. The day 
came when the too-sensitive heart of the young wife 


Fame and Sorrow. 


67 


received a blow, — one of those shocks which strain 
the ties of feeling so far that it seems as though they 
snapped. At first she isolated herself. But soon the 
fatal thought entered her mind to seek advice and con- 
solation from her own family. 

Accordingly, one morning earl}’, she drove to the 
grotesque entrance of the silent and gloomy house in 
which her childhood had been passed. She sighed as 
she looked at the window from which she had sient a 
first kiss to him who had filled her life with fame and 
sorrow. Nothing was changed in those cavernous pre- 
cincts, except that the business had taken a new lease 
of life. Augustine’s sister sat behind the counter in 
her mother’s old place. The poor afflicted woman met 
her brother-in-law with a pen behind his ear, and he 
hardly listened to her, so busy was he. The alarming 
signs of an approaching “ inventory ” were evident, and 
in a few moments he left her, asking to be excused. 

Her sister received her rather coldly, and showed 
some ill-will. In fact, Augustine in her palmy days, 
brilliant in happiness and driving about in a pretty 
equipage, had never come to see her sister except in 
passing. The wife of the prudent Lebas now imag- 
ined that money was the cause of this early visit, and 
she assumed a reserved tone, which made Augustine 
smile. The artist’s wife saw that her mother had a 
counterpart (except for the lappets of her cap) who 


68 


Fame and Sorrow, 


would keep up the antique dignity of the Cat-play- 
ing-ball. At breakfast, however, she noticed certain 
changes which did honor to the good sense of Joseph 
Lebas, — the clerks no longer rose and went away at 
dessert; they were allowed to use their faculty of 
speech, and the abundance on the table showed ease 
and comfort, without luxury. The 3’oung woman of 
society noticed the coupons of a box at the Fran9ais, 
where she remembered having seen her sister from 
time to time. Madame Lebas wore a cashmere shawl 
over her shoulders, the elegance of which was a sign 
of the generosity with which her husband treated 
her. In short, the pair were advancing with their 
century. 

Augustine was deeply moved to see, during the 
course of the day, many signs of a calm and equable 
happiness enjo3’ed by this well-assorted couple, — a 
happiness without exaltation, it was true, but also 
without peril. They had taken life as a commer- 
cial enterprise, in which their first dut}^ was to honor 
their business. Not finding in her husband any great 
warmth of love, Virginie had set to work to pro- 
duce it. Led insensibly" to respect and to cherish his 
wife, the time it took for their wedded happiness to 
blossom now seemed to Joseph Lebas as a pledge of its 
duration ; so, when the sorrowful Augustine told her 
tale of trouble, she was forced to endure a deluge of the 


Fame and Sorrow, 


69 


commonplace ideas which the ethics of the rue Saint- 
Denis suggested to Virginie. 

‘‘The evil is done, wife,” said Joseph Lebas ; “we 
must now try to give our sister the best advice.” 
Whereupon, the able man of business ponderously ex- 
plained the relief that the laws and established customs 
might give to Augustine, and so enable her to sur- 
mount her troubles. He numbered, if we may so 
express it, all the considerations ; ranged them in 
categories, as though they were goods of different 
qualities ; then he put them in the scales, weighed 
them, and finally came to the conclusion that necessity 
required his sister-in-law to take a firm stand, — a 
decision which did not satisfj" the love she still felt 
for her husband, a feeling that was reawakened in full 
force when she heard Lebas discussing judicial methods 
of asserting her rights. Augustine thanked her two 
friends and returned home, more undecided than before 
she consulted them. 

The next day she ventured to the house in the rue 
du Colombier, intending to confide her sorrows to her 
father and mother, for she was like those hopelessly ill 
persons who try all remedies in sheer despair, even the 
recipes of old women. Monsieur and Madame Guil- 
laume received their daughter with a warmth that 
touched her; the visit brought an interest which, to 
them, was a treasure. For four years they had floated 


TO 


Fame and Sorrow. 


on the sea of life like navigators without chart or com- 
pass. Sitting in their chimne3^-corner, the}" told each 
other again and again the disasters of the maximum ; 
the stor}’ of their first purchases of cloth, the manner in 
which the}" escaped bankruptc}’, and above all, the tale 
of the famous Lecocq failure, old Guillaume’s battle of 
Marengo. Then, when these stock stories were ex- 
hausted, they recapitulated the profits of their most 
productive 3'ears, or reminded each other of the gossip 
of the Saint-Denis quarter. At two o’clock Pere Guil- 
laume invariably went out to give an eye to the estab- 
lishment of the Cat-pla3’ing-ball ; on his wa}’ back he 
stopped at all the shops which were former!}" his rivals, 
whose 3"oung proprietors now endeavored to inveigle 
the old merchant into speculative investments which, 
according to his usual custom, he never positivel}’ de- 
clined. Two good Norman horses were dying of pleth- 
ora in the stable, but Madame Guillaume never used 
them except to be conveyed on Sunda3’s to high mass 
at the parish church. Three times a week the worthy 
couple kept open table. 

Thanks to the infiuence of his son-in-law, de Som- 
mervieux, Pere Guillaume had been appointed member 
of the advisoiy committee on the equipment of troops. 
PA"er since her husband had held that high post under 
government, Madame Guillaume had felt it her duty to 
maintain its dignity ; her rooms were therefore encum- 


Fame and Sorrow. 


71 


bered with so many ornaments of gold and silver, so 
much tasteless though costly furniture, that the sim- 
plest of them looked like a tawdr}’- chapel. Econom}’ 
and prodigality seemed fighting for precedence in all 
the accessories of the house. It really looked as if old 
Guillaume had considered the purchase of everything in 
it, down to a candlestick, as an investment. In the 
midst of this bazaar, de Sommervieux’s famous picture 
held the place of honor, and was a source of consola- 
tion to Monsieur and Madame Guillaume, who turned 
their spectacled e\^es twentj^ times a clay on that tran- 
script of their old life, to them so active and so 
exciting. 

The appearance of the house and of these rooms 
where all things had an odor of old age and mediocrit}', 
the spectacle of the two old people stranded on a rock 
far from the real world and the ideas that move it, sur- 
prised and affected Augustine ; she recognized the sec- 
ond half of the picture which had struck her so forcibly 
at the house of Joseph Lebas, — that of an active life 
without movement, a sort of mechanical and instinctive 
existence, like that of rolling on castors ; and there 
came into her mind a sense of pride in her sorrows as 
she remembered how they sprang from a happiness of 
eighteen months duration, worth more to her than a 
thousand existences like this, the void of which now 
seemed to her horrible. But she hid the rather un- 


72 


Fame and Sorrow. 


kindly thought, and displa3’ed her new qualities of mind 
to her old parents and the endearing tenderness which 
love had taught her, hoping to win them to listen favor- 
ably to her matrimonial trials. 

Old people delight in such confidences. Madame 
Guillaume wished to hear the minutest particulars of 
that strange life which, to her, was almost fabulous. 
“ The Travels of the Baron de La Houtan,” which she 
had begun many times and never finished, had revealed 
to her nothing more inconceivable among the savages 
of Canada. 

“ But, my dear child,” she said, “ do 3’ou mean to 
say that j’our husband shuts himself up with naked 
women, and 3’ou are simple enough to believe he paints 
them?” With these words she laid her spectacles on 
a work-table, shook out her petticoats, and laid her 
clasped hands on her knees, raised b3' a foot-warmer, — 
her favorite attitude. 

“But, my dear mother, all painters are obliged to 
emplo3' models.” 

“ He took care not to tell us that when he asked you 
in marriage. If I had known it I would never have 
given my daughter to a man with such a trade. Re- 
ligion forbids such horrors ; they are immoral. What 
time of night do you say he comes home ? ” 

“ Oh, at one o’clock, — or two, perhaps.” 

The old people looked at each other in amazement. 


Fame and Sorrow, 


73 


“ Then he gambles,” said Monsieur Guillaume. “ lii 
my day it was onl}" gamblers who stayed out so late.” 

Augustine made a little face to deny the accusation. 

“You must suffer dreadfully waiting for him,” said 
Madame Guillaume. “ But no, j’ou go to bed, I hope, 
— don’t you? Then when he has gambled away all his 
mone3% the monster comes home and wakes you up ? ” 

“ No, mother ; on the contrary, he is sometimes very 
gay ; indeed, when the weather is fine, he often asks 
me to get up and go into the woods with him.’^ 

“ Into the woods ! — at that hour? Your house must 
be very small if he has n’t room enough in it to stretch 
his legs ! No, no, it is to give 3’ou cold that the villain 
makes such proposals as that ; he wants to get rid of 
3'ou. Did an}’ one ever know a decent man with a 
home of his own and a steady business galloping round 
like a were- wolf ! ” 

“ But, my dear mother, you don’t understand that he 
needs excitements to develop his genius. He loves the 
scenes which — ” 

“ Scenes ! I’d make him fine scenes, I would,” cried 
Madame Guillaume, interrupting her daughter. “How 
can 3’ou keep on an}’ terms at all with such a man ? 
And I don’t like that idea of his drinking nothing but 
water. It is n’t wholesome. Why does he dislike to 
see women eat? what a strange notion ! He ’s a mad- 
man, that ’s what he is. All that you say of him proves 


74 


Fame and Soi'row. 


it. No sane man leaves his home without a word, and 
sta3^s awa3" ten da^’s. Pie told 3’ou he went to Dieppe 
to paint the sea ! How can any one paint the sea ? He 
told 3'ou such nonsense to blind j’ou.” 

Augustine opened her lips to defend her husband, 
but Madame Guillaume silenced her with a motion of 
her hand which the old habit of obedience led her to 
obe3", and the old woman continued, in a sharp voice : 
“ Don’t talk to me of that man. He never set foot in 
a church except to marry 3'ou. Persons who have no 
religion are capable of an3’thing. Did 3'our father ever 
venture to hide anything from me, or keep silent three 
da3’s without sa3’ing boo to me, and then begin to chatter 
like a blind magpie? No ! ” 

“My dear mother, 3’ou judge superior men too se- 
verel3% If the3' had ideas like other people they would 
not be men of genius.” 

“ Well ! then men of genius should keep to them- 
selves and not many. Do you mean to tell me that a 
man can make his wife miserable, and if he has got 
genius it is all right? Genius! I don’t see much 
genius in sa3’ing a thing is black and white in the same 
breath, and ramming people’s words down their throats, 
and lording it over his famil3', and never letting his 
wife know how to take him, and forbidding her to amuse 
herself unless monsieur, forsooth, is and forcing 
her to be gloom3^ as soon as he is — ” 


Fame and Sorrow. 


75 


‘‘ But, my dear mother, the reason for all such 
imaginations — ” 

“What do you mean all such imaginations?” 
cried Madame Guillaume, again interrupting her daugh- 
ter. “He has fine ones, faith! What sort of man 
is he who takes a notion, without consulting a doctor, 
to eat nothing but vegetables ? If he did it out of piety, 
such a diet might do him some good; but he has no 
more religion than a Huguenot. Who ever saw a man 
in his senses love a horse better than he loves his neigh- 
bor, and have his hair curled like a pagan image, and 
cover his statues with muslin, and shut up the windows 
in the daytime to work by lamplight? Come, come, 
don’t talk to me ; if he were not so grossly immoral he 
ought to be put in the insane asylum. You had better 
consult Monsieur Loraux, the vicar of Saint-Sulpice ; 
ask him what he thinks of all this. He’ll tell you that 
your husband does n’t behave like a Christian man.” 

Oh ! mother, how can you think — ” 

“Think! j'es I do think it! You used to love him 
and therefore you don’t see these things. But I re- 
member how I saw him, not long after your marriage, 
in the Champs-El3’sees. He was on horseback. Well, 
he galloped at full speed for a little distance, then he 
stopped and went at a snail’s pace. I said to myself 
then, ‘ There ’s a man who has no sense.’ ” 

“ Ah ! ” cried Monsieur Guillaume, rubbing his hands. 


76 


Fame and Sorrow, 


“ what a good thing it is I had 3’oiir propert^^ settled on 
3’ourself.” 

After Augustine had the imprudence to explain her 
real causes of complaint against her husband the two 
old people were silent with indignation. Madame Guil- 
laume uttered the word divorce. It seemed to awaken 
tlie now inactive old business-man. Moved b3" his love 
for his daughter and also b3^ the excitement such a step 
would give to his eventless life, Pere Guillaume roused 
himself to action. He demanded divorce, talked of 
managing it, argued the pros and cons, and promised 
his daughter to pay all the costs, engage the lawyers, 
see the judges, and move heaven and earth. Madame 
de Sommervieux, much alarmed, refused his services 
declaring she would not separate from her husband 
were she ten times more unhappy than she was, and 
saying no more about her sorrows. After the old peo- 
ple had endeavored, but in vain, to soothe her with 
many little silent and consoling attentions, Augustine 
went home feeling the impossibilit3’ of getting narrow 
minds to take a just view of superior men. She learned 
then that a wife should hide from all the world, even 
from her parents, the sorrows for which it is so difficult 
to obtain true sympath3'. The storms and the suffer- 
ings of the higher spheres of human existence are com- 
prehended onl3' by the noble minds whic;h inhabit them. 
In all things, we can be justly judged only by our equals. 


Fame and Sorrow. 


77 


Thus poor Augustine found herself once more in the 
cold atmosphere of her home, cast back into the hor- 
rors of her lonel}’ meditations. Study no longer availed 
her, for study had not restored her husband’s heart. 
Initiated into the secrets of those souls of fire but 
deprived of their resources, she entered deepl}^ into 
their trials without sharing their joys. She became dis- 
gusted with the world, which seemed to her small and 
petty indeed in presence of events born of passion. 
In short, life to her was a failure. 

One evening a thought came into her mind which il- 
luminated the dark regions of her grief with a gleam 
of celestial light. Such a thought could have smiled 
into no heart that was less pure and guileless than hers. 
She resolved to go to the Duchesse de Carigliano, not to 
ask for the heart of her husband, but to learn from that 
great lady the arts which had taken him from her ; to 
interest that proud woman of the world in the mother 
of her friend’s children ; to soften her, to make her the 
accomplice of her future peace, just as she was now the 
instrument of her present sorrow. 

So, one day, the timid Augustine, armed with super- 
natural courage, got into her carriage about two o’clock 
in the afternoon, intending to make her way into the 
boudoir of the celebrated lady, who was never visible 
until that time of da3\ 

Madame de Sommervieux had never yet seen an}' of 


78 


Fame and Sorrow. 


the old and sumptuous mansions of the faubourg Saint- 
Germain. When she passed through the majestic ves- 
tibule, the noble stairwa3’s, the vast salons, filled with 
flowers in spite of the inclemencies of the season, and 
decorated with the natural taste of women born to opu- 
lence or to the elegant habits of the aristocracy, Augus- 
tine was conscious of a terrible constriction of her heart. 
She envied the secrets of an elegance of which till then 
she had had no idea ; she inhaled a breath of grandeur 
which explained to her the charm that house possessed 
over her husband. 

When she reached the private apartments of the 
duchess she felt both jealousy and despair as she noted 
the voluptuous arrangement of the furniture, the dra- 
peries, the hangings upon the walls. There, disorder 
was a grace ; there, luxury" affected disdain of mere 
richness. The perfume of this soft atmosphere pleased 
the senses without annoying them. The accessories of 
these rooms harmonized with the vista of gardens and 
a lawn planted with trees seen through the windows. 
All was seductive, and yet no calculated seduction was 
felt. The genius of the mistress of these apartments 
pervaded the salon in which Augustine now awaited her. 
Madame de Sommervieux endeavored to guess the 
character of her rival from the objects about the room ; 
but there was something impenetrable in its disorder as 
in its symmetry’, and to the. guileless Augustine it was 


Fame and Sorrow, 


79 


a sealed book. All that she could reall}’ make out was 
that the duchess was a superior woman as woman. The 
discovery brought her a painful thought. 

“ Alas ! can it be true,’^ she said to herself, “ that a 
simple and loving heart does not suffice an artist? and to 
balance the weight of their strong souls must they be 
joined to feminine souls whose force is equal to their 
own? If I had been brought up like this siren our 
weapons at least would have been matched for the 
struggle.” 

“ But I am not at home!” The curt, sharp words, 
though said in a low voice in the adjoining boudoir, were 
overheard by Augustine, whose heart throbbed. 

“ The lady is here,” said the waiting- woman. 

“You are crazy I Show her in,” added the duchess, 
changing her voice to a cordially polite tone. Evidentlj^ 
she expected then to be overheard. 

Augustine advanced timidly. At the farther end of 
the cool boudoir she saw the duchess luxuriously reclin- 
ing on a brown-velvet ottoman placed in the centre of a 
species of half-circle formed by folds of muslin draped 
over a yellow ground. Ornaments of gilded bronze, 
arranged with exquisite taste, heightened still further 
the effect of the dais under which the duchess posed 
like an antique statue. The dark color of the velvet 
enabled her to lose no means of seduction. A soft 
chiaro-scuro, favorable to her beauty, seemed more a 


80 


Fame and Sorrow. 


reflection than a light. A few choice flowers lifted their 
fragrant heads from the Sevres vases. As this scene 
caught the ej’e of the astonished Augustine she came 
forward so quickly and softly that she surprised a 
glance from the eyes of the enchantress. That glance 
seemed to say to a person whom at first the painter’s 
wife could not see: “Wait; you shall see a pretty 
woman, and help me to put up with a tiresome visit.” 

As Augustine advanced the duchess rose, and made 
her sit beside her. 

“ To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, ma- 
dame? ” she said, with a smile full of charm. 

“Why so false?” thought Augustine, who merely 
bowed her head. 

Silence was a necessit}^ ; for the 3’^oung woman now 
saw a witness to the interview in the person of an 
officer of the army, — the youngest, and most elegant 
and dashing of the colonels. His clothes, which were 
those of a civilian, set off* the graces of his person. 
His face, full of life and youth and ver}’ expressive, 
was still further enlivened by small monstachios, black 
as jet and waxed to a point, by a well-trimmed im- 
perial, carefully combed whiskers and a forest of black 
hair which was somewhat in disorder. He played with 
a riding-whip and showed an ease and freedom of man- 
ner which agreed well with the satisfied expression of 
his face and the elegance of his dress ; the ribbons in 


Fame and Sorrow. 


81 


his buttonhole were carelessly knotted and he seemed 
more vain of his appearance than of his courage. 
Augustine looked at the Duchesse de Carigliano, with 
a glance at the colonel in which many prayers were 
included. 

“ Well, adieu, Monsieur d’Aiglemont ; we shall meet 
in the .Bois de Boulogne,” said the siren, in a tone as 
if the words were the result of some agreement made 
before Augustine entered the room ; she accompanied 
them with a threatening glance, which the officer de- 
served, perhaps, for the undisguised admiration with 
which he looked at the modest flower who contrasted 
so admirably with the haughty duchess. The young 
dand}' bowed in silence, turned on the heels of his 
boots, and gracefully left the room. At that moment 
Augustine, watching her rival whose eyes followed the 
brilliant officer, caught sight of a sentiment the fugitive 
expressions of which are known to eveiy woman. She 
saw with bitter sorrow that her visit would be useless ; 
the artful duchess was too eager for homage not to have 
a pitiless heart. 

“ Madame,” said Augustine, in a broken voice, “ the 
step I now take will seem veiy strange to you ; but de- 
spair has its madness, and that is my excuse. I can 
now understand only too well wffiy Theodore prefers 
your house to mine, and how it is that your mind 
should exercise so great an empire over him. Alas ! 

6 


82 Fame and Sorrow. 

I have but to look within myself to find reasons that 
are more than sufficient. But 1 adore my husband, 
madame. Two years of sorrow have not changed the 
love of my heart, though I have lost his. In my 
madness I have dared to believe that I might struggle 
against you ; I have come to you to be told by what 
means I can triumph over 3’ou. Oh, madame ! ” cried 
the 3’oung woman, seizing the hand which her rival 
allowed her to take, never will I pray God for my 
own happiness with such fervor as I wdll pray to him 
for yours, if 3'ou will help me to recover, I will not 
sa3' the love, but the friendship of my husband. I have 
no longer any hope except in 3'ou. Ah ! tell me how 
it is 3’ou have won him, and made him forget the early 
da3's of — ” 

At these words Augustine, choking with her sobs, 
was compelled to pause. Ashamed of her weakness, 
she covered her face with a handkerchief that was wet 
with tears. 

“ Ah, what a child you are, my dear little lad3M 
said the duchess, fascinated b3" the novelt3" of the 
scene and touched in spite of herself at receiving such 
homage from as perfect a virtue as there was in Paris, 
taking the 3'oung wife’s handkerchief and herself dr3*- 
ing her tears and soothing her with a few murmured 
monosyllables of graceful pit3'. 

After a moment’s silence the accomplished coquette, 


Fame and Sorrow, 


83 


clasping poor Augustine’s prett}^ hands in her own, 
which had a rare character of noble beauty and power, 
said, in a gentle and even affectionate voice : “ My first 
advice will be not to weep ; tears are unbecoming. We 
must learn how to conquer sorrows which make us ill, 
lor love will not stay long on a bed of pain. Sadness 
may at first bestow a certain charm which pleases a 
man, but it ends by sharpening the features and 
fading the color of the sweetest face. And remember, 
our tyrants have the self-love to require that their 
slaves shall be always gay.” 

“ Ah, madame ! is it within my power to cease feel- 
ing? How is it possible not to die a thousand deaths 
when we see a face which once shone for us with love 
and jo3% now harsh, and cold, and indifferent? No, I 
cannot control m}^ heart.” 

“ So much the worse for Von, my poor dear. But I 
think I already know 3’our history. In the first place, 
be ver}" sure that if 3’our husband has been unfaithful 
to you, I am not his accomplice. If I made a point of 
attracting him to m3’ salon, it was, I freel3’ confess, out 
of vanity ; he was famous, and he went nowhere. I 
like 3’ou too well already to tell 3’ou all the follies he has 
committed for me. But I shall reveal one of them be- 
cause it may perhaps help us to bring him back to you, 
and to punish him for the audacit3’ he has lately shown 
in his proceedings toward me. He will end b3'^ com- 


84 


Fame and Sorrow, 


promising me. I know the world too well, m3' dear, 
to put m3’self at the merc3' of a superior man. Believe 
me, it is veiy well to let them court us, but to many 
them is a blunder. We women should admire men of 
genius, enjo}' them as we would a pla}’, but live with 
them — never ! No, no ! it is like going behind the 
scenes and seeing the machiner}', instead of sitting in 
our boxes and enjoying the illusions. But with 3’ou, 
my poor child, the harm is done, is it not? Well, 
then, 3’ou must tiy to arm yourself against t3’rann3*.” 

“Ah, madame, as I entered this house and before I 
saw you 1 became aware of certain arts that 1 never 
suspected.” 

“ Well, come and see me sometimes, and \’ou wdll 
soon learn the science of such trifles, — reallj^ impor- 
tant, however, in their effects. External things are to 
fools more than one half of life ; and for that reason 
more than one man of talent is a fool in spite of his 
superiority. I will venture to lay a wager that 3’ou 
have never refused anything to Theodore.” 

“ How can we refuse anything to those we love? ” 

“ Poor, innocent child ! I adore your foil}'. Let me 
tell you that the more we love the less we should let a 
man, speciall}' a husband, see the extent of our passion. 
Whoever loves the most is certain to be the one that is 
tyrannized over, and, worse than all, deserted sooner 
or later. Whoever desires to reign must — ” 


Fame and Sorrow, 


85 


“ Oh, madame, must we all dissimulate, calculate, be 
false at heart, make ourselves an artificial nature, and 
forever? Oh, who could live thus? Could 3*ou — ” 

She hesitated ; the duchess smiled. 

“ M3’ dear,” resumed the great lad3^ in a grave tone, 
“ conjugal happiness has been from time immemorial a 
speculation, a matter which required particular stud3’. 
If 3'ou persist in talking passion while I am talking 
marriage we shall never understand each other. Listen 
to me,” she continued, in a confidential tone. “ I have 
been in the wa3’ of seeing man3^ of the superior men of 
our da3^ Those of them who married chose, with few 
exceptions, women who were ciphers. Well, those 
women have governed them just as the Emperor gov- 
erns us, and the3’ have been, if not beloved, at least 
alwa3"S respected b3^ them. I am fond of secrets, 
especiall3^ those that concern our sex, and to amuse 
m3’self I have sought the ke3^ to that riddle. Well, 
m3’ dear little angel, it is this, — those good women 
knew enough to anal3’ze the characters of their hus- 
bands ; without being frightened, as 3’ou have been, 
at their superiority, the3’ have cleverl3’ discovered the 
qualities those men lacked, and whether they them- 
selves had them or only feigned to have them, they 
found means to make such a show of those very qual- 
ities before the eyes of their husbands that they ended 
by mastering them. Remember one thing more : those 


86 


Fame and Sorrow. 


souls which seem so great all have a little grain of folly 
in them, and it is our business to make the most of it. 
If we set our wills to rule them and let nothing deter 
us, but concentrate all our actions, our ideas, our fas- 
cinations upon that, we can master those eminently 
capricious minds, — for the veiy inconstanc}" of their 
thoughts gives us the means of influencing them.” 

“Oh!” cried the young wife, horror-struck, “can 
that be life ? Then it is a battle — ” 

“ — in which whoso would win must threaten,” said 
the duchess laughing. “ Our power is artificial. Con- 
sequently we should never let a man despise us ; we 
can never rise after such a fall except through vile 
manoeuvres. Come,” she added, “I will give you the 
means to hold 3’our husband in chains.” 

She rose, and guided her young and innocent pupil 
in conjugal wiles through the lab3Tinths of her little 
palace. The3' came presenth’ to a private staircase 
which communicated with the state apartments. When 
the duchess touched the secret lock of the door she 
stopped, looked at Augustine with an inimitable air of 
wiliness and grace, and said, smiling: “My dear, the 
Due de Carigliano adores me, — well, he would not dare 
to enter this door without my permission. Yet he is a 
man who has the habit of command over thousanils of 
soldiers. He can face a battery, but in my presence — 
he is afraid.” 


Fame and Sorrow. 


87 


Augustine sighed. They reached a noble gallery, 
where the duchess led the painter’s wife before the 
portrait Theodore had once made of Mademoiselle 
Guillaume. At sight of it Augustine uttered a ciy. 

“I knew it was no longer in the house,” she said, 
“ but — here ! ” 

“My dear child, I exacted it only to see how far 
the folly of a man of genius would go. 1 intended to 
return it to you sooner or later ; for I did not expect 
the pleasure of seeing the original standing before the 
copy. 1 will have the picture taken to your carriage 
while we finish our conversation. If, armed with that 
talisman, you are not mistress of your husband during 
the next hundred 3 "ears, 3 ’ou are not a woman and \’ou 
deserve j’our fate.” 

Augustine kissed the hand of the great lady, who 
pressed her to her heart with all the more tenderness 
because she was certain to have forgotten her on the 
morrow. This scene might have destroyed forever 
the purit}" and candor of a less virtuous woman than 
Augustine, to whom the secrets revealed by the duchess 
could have been either salutaiy or fatal ; but the astute 
policy’ of the higher social spheres suited Augustine as 
little as the narrow reasoning of Joseph Lebas or the 
silly morality of Madame Guillaume. Strange result 
of the false positions into which we are thrown by the 
even trivial mistakes we make in life ! Augustine was 


88 


Fame and Sorrow. 


like an Alpine herdsman overtaken by an avalanche ; 
if he hesitates, or listens to the cries of his comrades, 
he is lost. In these great crises the heart either breaks 
or hardens. 

Madame de Sommervieux returned home a prey to 
an agitation it is difficult to describe. Her conversation 
with the duchess had roused a thousand contradictory 
ideas in her mind. Like the sheep of the fable, full of 
courage when the wolf was away, she preached to her- 
self and laid down admirable lines of conduct ; she 
imagined stratagems of coquetr}" ; she talked to her 
husband, he being absent, with all the resources of 
that eloquence which never leaves a woman ; then, 
remembering the glance of Theodore’s fixed, light eyes, 
she trembled with fear. When she asked if Monsieur 
were at home, her voice failed her. Hearing that he 
would not be at home to dinner, she was conscious of 
a feeling of inexplicable relief. Like a criminal who 
appeals against a death-sentence, the dela}’, however 
short, seemed to her a lifetime. 

She placed the portrait in her bedroom, and awaited 
her husband in all the agonies of hope. Too well she 
knew that this attempt would decide her whole future, 
and she trembled at every sound, even at the ticking of 
her clock, which seemed to increase her fears by mea- 
suring them. She tried to cheat time; the idea oc- 
curred to her to dress in a manner that made her still 


Fame and Sorrow. 


89 


more like the portrait. Then, knowing her husband’s 
uneasy nature, she caused her rooms to be lighted up 
with unusual brilliancy, certain that curiosity would 
bring him to her as soon as he came in. Midnight * 
sounded, and at the groom’s cry the gates opened and 
the painter’s carriage rolled into the silent courtyard. 

“What is the meaning of all this illumination?” 
asked Theodore, gayly, as he entered his wife’s room. 

Augustine took advantage of so favorable a moment 
and threw herself into his arms as she pointed to the 
portrait. The artist stood still ; immovable as a rock, 
gazing alternately at Augustine and at the tell-tale can- 
vas. The timid wife, half-dead with fear, watched the 
changing brow, that terrible brow, and saw the cruel 
wrinkles gathering like clouds ; then the blood seemed 
to curdle in her veins when, with a flaming eye and a 
husky voice, he began to question her. 

“Where did 3011 get that picture?” 

“ The Duchesse de Carigliano returned it to me.” 

“ Did 3^ou ask her for it? ” 

“ I did not know she had it.” 

The softness, or rather the enchanting melody of that 
angel voice might have turned the heart of cannibals, 
but not that of an artist in the tortures of wounded 
vanity. 

“ It is worthy of her ! ” cried the artist, in a voice of 
thunder. “ I will be revenged ! ” he said, striding up 


90 


Fame and Sorrow, 


and down the room. “ She shall die of shame*, I will 
paint her, — yes, I will exhibit her in the character of 
Messalina leaving Claudius’ palace by night.*’ 

“ Theodore ! ” said a faint voice. 

“ I will kill her ! ” 

“ My husband ! ” 

“ She loves that little cavalry colonel, because he 
rides well ! ” 

“ Theodore ! ” 

“ Let me alone ! ” said the painter to his wife, in a 
voice that was almost a roar. 

The scene is too repulsive to depict here ; the rage 
of the artist led him, before it ended, to words and acts 
which a woman less 3^oung and timid than Augustine 
would have ascribed to insanity. 

About eight o’clock on the following morning Madame 
Guillaume found her daughter pale, with red eyes and 
her hair in disorder, gazing on the fragments of a 
painted canvas and the pieces of a broken frame which 
lay scattered on the floor. Augustine, almost uncon- 
scious with grief, pointed to the wreck with a gesture 
of despair. 

“It is not such a very great loss,” cried the old 
woman. “ It was very like 3’ou, that’s true ; but I ’m 
told there is a man on the boulevard who paints 
charming portraits for a hundred and 6% francs.” 

“ Ah, mother ! ” 


Fame and Sorrow. 


91 


“ Poor dear! well, j’ou are right,” answered Madame 
Guillaume, mistaking the meaning of the look her 
daughter gave her; “there is nothing so tender as 
a mother’s love. My dearest, I can guess it all ; tell 
me your troubles and I ’ll comfort you. Your maid has 
told me dreadful things ; I always said 3’our husband 
was a madman, — wh}’, he ’s a monster ! ” 

Augustine put her finger on her pallid lips as if to 
implore silence. During that terrible night sorrow had 
brought her the patient resignation which, in mothers 
and in loving women, surpasses in its effects all other 
human forces, and reveals, perhaps, the existence of 
certain fibres in the hearts of women which God has 
denied to those of men. 

An inscription engraved on a broken column in the 
cemetery of Montmartre states that Madame de Som- 
mervieux died at twentj’-seven 3’ears of age. Between 
the simple lines of her epitaph a friend of the timid 
creature reads the last scenes of a drama. Every 3’ear, 
on the solemn second of November, as he passes before 
that earl3^ grave he never fails to ask himself if stronger 
women than Augustine are not needed for the powerful 
clasp of genius. 

“ The modest, humble flower, blooming in the valle3" 
dies,” he thought, “ if transplanted nearer to heaven, 
to the regions where the storms gather and the sun 
wilts.” 



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COLONEL CHABERT, 


To Madame la Comtesse Ida de Bocarmb 

NEE DU ChASTELER. 


“ There *s our old top-coat again ! 

This exclamation came from the lips of a clerk of the 
species called in Parisian law-offices “ gutter-jumpers,” 
who was at the moment munching with a very good 
appetite a slice of bread. He took a little of the crumb 
and made a pellet, which he flung, with a laugh, through 
the blinds of the window against which he was leaning. 
Well-aimed, the pellet rebounded nearly to the height 
of the window after hitting the hat of a stranger who 
was crossing the court^’ard of a house in the rue Vivi- 
enne, where Maitre Derville, the law3-er, resided. 

“ Come, come, Simonnin, don’t play tricks, or I ’ll 
turn you off. No matter how poor a client maA^ be, he 
is a man, the devil take you ! ” said the head-clerk, 
pausing as he added up a bill of costs. 


94 


Colonel Chahert, 


The gutter-jumper is usually, like Simonnin, a lad 
of thirteen or fourteen years of age, who in all law- 
offices is under the particular supervision of the head- 
clerk, whose errands he does, and whose love-letters 
he carries, together with the writs of the courts and the 
petitions entered. He belongs to the gamm de Paris 
through his ethics, and to the pettifogging side of law 
through fate. The lad is usually pitiless, undisciplined, 
totally without reverence, a scoffer, a writer of epi- 
grams, lazy, and also greedy. Nevertheless, all such 
little fellows have an old mother living on some fifth 
story, with whom thej^ share the thirty or fort}’ francs 
they earn monthl}’.” 

“ If it is a man, wh}’ do j’ou call him an ‘ old top- 
coat,’” said Simonnin, in the tone of a scholar who 
detects his master in a mistake. 

Thereupon he returned to the munching of his bread 
with a bit of cheese, leaning his shoulder against the 
window-frame ; for he took his rest standing, like the 
horses of the hackne}’- coaches, with one leg raised and 
supported against the other. 

“ Couldn’t we play that old gu}^ some trick?” said 
the third clerk, Godeschal, in a low voice, stopping in 
the middle of a legal document he w’as dictating to be 
engrossed by the fourth clerk and copied by two neo- 
phytes from the provinces. Having made the above 
suggestion, he went on with his dictation: But in 


Colonel Chahert. 


95 


his gracious and benevolent wisdom His Majesty 
Louis the Eighteenth^ — Write all the letters, hi, 
there ! Desroches the learned ! — so soon as he re- 
covered the reins of power ^ understood — What did 
that fat joker understand, I ’d like to know ? — the 
high mission to which Divine Providence had called 

him! Put an exclamation mark and six 

dots ; they are pious enough at the Palais to let ’em 
pass — and his first thought was^ as is proved by the 
date of the ordinance herein named ^ to repair evils 
caused by the frightful and lamentable disasters of 
the revolutionary period by restoring to his faithful 
and fiumerous adherents — ‘ Numerous ^ is a bit of 

flattery which ought to please the court — all their 
unsold property wheresoever situate^ whether in the 
public domain or the ordinary and extraordinary 
crown domains^ or in the endowments of public in- 
stitutions ; for we contend and hold ourselves able to 
maintain that such is the spirit and the meaning of 
the gracious ordinance^ rendered in — ” 

“ Stop, stop,” said Godeschal to the three clerks ; 
“ that rascally sentence has come to the end of my 
paper and is n’t done yet. Well,” he added, stopping 
to wet the back of the cahier with his tongue to turn the 
thick page of his stamped paper, “ if you want to pla}^ 
the old top-coat a trick tell him that the master is so 
busy he can talk to clients onl3^ between two and three 


96 


Colonel Chabert, 


o’clock in the morning ; we ’ll see if he comes then, the 
old villain ! ” and Godeschal returned to his dictation : 
“ gracious ordinance rendered in — Have you got 
that down?” 

“Yes,” cried the three copyists. 

“ Rendered in — Hi, papa Boucard, what ’s the date 
of that ordinance? Dot your i’s, wiam et omnes — 
it fills up.” 

“ Omnes repeated one of the clerks before Bou- 
card, the head-clerk, could answer. 

“ Good heavens ! j^ou have n’t written that, have 
you?” cried Godeschal, looking at the provincial new- 
comer with a truculent air. 

“Yes, he has,” said Desroches, the fourth clerk, 
leaning over to look at his neighbor’s copy, “he has 
written, “ Dot 3’our i’s, and he spells it e-3'-e-s.” 

All the clerks burst into a roar of laughter. 

“ Do 3'ou call that a law-term, Monsieur Hure ? ” cried 
Simonnin, “ and 3'ou sa3’ you come from Mortagne ! ” 

“ Scratch it out carefully,” said the head-clerk. “ If 
one of the judges were to get hold of the petition and 
see that, the master would never hear the last of it. 
Come, no more such blunders. Monsieur Hure ; a Nor- 
man ought to know better than to write a petition care- 
lessly ; it’s the ‘ Shoulder-arms ! ’ of the legal guild.” 

Rendered in — in — ” went on Godeschal. “ Do 
tell me when, Boucard?” 


Colonel ChaherU 


97 


“ June, 1814,” replied the bead-clerk, without raising 
his head from his work. 

A knock at the door interrupted the next sentence of 
the prolix petition. Five grinning clerks, with lively, 
satirical eyes and curly heads, turned their noses to- 
wards the door, having all shouted with one voice, 
“ Come in! ” Boucard remained with his head buried 
in a mound of deeds, and went on making out the bill 
of costs on w^hich he was employed. 

The oflSce was a large room, furnished with the clas- 
sic stove that adorns all other pettifogging precincts. 
The pipes went diagonally across the room and entered 
the chimney, on the marble mantel-shelf of which were 
diverse bits of bread, triangles of Brie cheese, fresh 
pork-chops, glasses, bottles, and a cup of chocolate for 
the head-clerk. The smell of these comestibles amalga- 
mated so well with the offensive odor of the over-heated 
stove and the peculiar exhalations of desks and papers 
that the stench of a fox would hardly have been per- 
ceived. The floor was covered with mud and snow 
brought m by the clerks. Near the window stood the 
rolling-top desk of the head-clerk, and next to it the 
little table of the second clerk. The latter was now on 
duty in the courts, where he usually went between eight 
and nine o’clock in the morning. The sole decorations 
of the office were the well-known largo yellow posters 
which announce attachments on property, mortgagee- 
7 


98 


Colonel Chahert, 


sales, litigations between guardians a^jd minors, and 
auctions, final or postponed, the glory of legal offices. 

Behind the head-clerk, and covering the wall from 
top to bottom, was a case with an enormous number of 
pigeon-holes, each stuffed with bundles of papers, from 
which hung innumerable tags and those bits of red 
tape which give special character to legal documents. 
The lower shelves of the case were filled with paste- 
board boxes, yellowed by time and edged with blue 
paper, on which could be read the names of the more 
distinguished clients whose affairs were cooking at the 
present time. The dirty window-panes let in but a 
small amount of light; besides, in the month of Feb- 
ruary there are very few law-offices in Paris where the 
clerks can write without a lamp before ten o’clock in the 
day. Such offices are invariably neglected, and for 
the reason that while ever}’ one goes there nobody 
staj’s ; no personal interest attaches to so mean a 
spot; neither the lawyers, nor the clients, nor the 
clerks, care for the appearance of the place which is 
to the latter a school, to the clients a means, to the 
master a laboratory. The greasy furniture is trans- 
mitted from lawyer to lawyer with such scrupulous ex- 
actness that certain offices still possess boxes of “ resi- 
dues,” parchments engrossed in black-letter, and bags, 
which have descended from the solicitors of the “ Chlet,” 
an abbreviation of the word “ Chatelet,” an institution 


Colonel Chahert. 


99 


which represented under the old order of things what a 
court of common pleas is in our daj’. 

This dark office, choked with dust and dirt, was there- 
fore, like all such offices, repulsive to clients, and one 
of the ugly monstrosities of Paris. Certainlj', if the 
damp sacristies where prayers are weighed and paid 
for like spices, if the second-hand shops, where flutter 
rags which blight the illusions of life b}^ revealing to us 
the end of our festive arrays, if these two sewers of 
poesy did not exist, a lawyer’s office would be the most 
horrible of all social dens. But the same characteristic 
ma}' be seen in gambling-houses, in court-rooms, in the 
letter}- bureaus, and in evil resorts. Why? Perhaps 
because the drama played in such places within the 
soul renders men indifferent to externals, — a thought 
wdiich likewise explains the simplicity of great thinkers 
and men of great ambitions. 

“ Where ’s my penknife?” 

“ I shall eat my breakfast.” 

“ Look out ! there ’s a blot on the petition.” 

“ Hush, gentlemen ! ” 

These various exclamations went off all at once just 
as the old client entered and closed the door, with the 
sort of humility which gives an unnatural air to the 
movements of a poverty-stricken man. The stranger 
tried to smile, but the muscles of his face relaxed 
when he had vainly looked for symptoms of civility 

L.ofC. 


100 


Colonel Chahert. 


on the inexorably indifferent faces of the six clerks. 
Accustomed, no doubt, to judge men, he addressed 
himself politely to the gutter-jumper, hoping that the 
office drudge might answer him civilly : — 

“ Monsieur, can I see your master?” 

The mischievous youngster replied b}' tapping his 
ear with the fingers of his left hand, as much as to 
say, “ I am deaf.” 

“ What is it 3’ou want, monsieur?” asked Godeschal 
swallowing an enormous mouthful as he asked the 
question, — brandishing his knife and crossing his legs 
till the foot of the upper one came on a line with his 
nose. 

“ I have called five times, monsieur,” replied the 
visitor; “I wish to speak to Monsieur Derville.” 

“ On business?” 

“ Yes ; but I can explain m}^ business onl^’ to him.” 

“He’s asleep; if 3’ou wish to consult him 3'ou’ll 
have to come at night ; he never gets to work before 
midnight. But if 3’ou will explain the matter to us we 
can perhaps do as well — ” 

The stranger was impassive. He looked humbly 
about him like a dog slipping into a strange kitchen 
and afraid of kicks. Thanks to their general condi- 
tion, law- clerks are not afraid of thieves ; so they felt 
no suspicion of the top-coat, but allowed him to look 
round in search of a seat, for he was evidently fatigued. 


Colonel Chahert. 


101 


It is a matter of calculation with lawyers to have few 
chairs in their offices. The common client, weary of 
standing, goes awaj’’ grumbling. 

“ Monsieur,” replied the stranger, “ I have already 
had the honor of telling you that I can explain my 
business to no one but Monsieur Derville. I will wait 
until he is up.” 

Boucard had now finished his accounts. He smelt 
the fumes of his chocolate, left his cane chair, came up 
to the chimney, looked the old man over from head to 
foot, gazed at the top-coat and made an indescribable 
grimace. He probably thought that no matter how 
long the}^ kept this client on the rack not a penny 
could be got out of him ; and he now interposed, 
meaning with a few curt words to rid the oflSce of an 
unprofitable client. 

“ They tell you the truth, monsieur,” he said ; Mon- 
sieur Derville works only at night. If your business is 
important I advise you to come back here at one or two 
in the morning.” 

The client looked at the head-clerk with a stupid airj 
and remained for an instant motionless. Accustomed 
to see many changes of countenance, and many sin- 
gular expressions produced b}^ the hesitation and the 
dreaminess which characterize persons who go to law, 
the clerks took no notice of the old man, but continued 
to eat their breakfasts with as much noise of their jaws 
as if the}’ were horses at a manger. 


102 


Colonel Chahert. 


“ Monsieur, I shall return to-night,” said the visi- 
tor, who, with the tenacity of an unhappy man, was 
determined to put his tormentors in the wrong. 

The only retaliation granted to poverty is that of 
forcing justice and benevolence to unjust refusals. 
When unhappy souls have convicted society of false- 
hood then they fling themselves the more ardently 
upon the bosom of God. 

‘ ‘ Did you ever see such a skull ? ” ciled Simonnin, 
without waiting till the door had closed on the old 
man. 

“He looks as if he had been buried and dug up 
again,” said one. 

“He’s some colonel who wants his back-pay,” said 
the head-clerk. 

“ No, he’s an old porter.” 

‘ ‘ Who ’ll bet he ’s a nobleman ? ” cried Boucard. 

“I’ll bet he has been a porter,” said Godeschal. 
“ None but porters are gifted by nature with top-coats 
as greasy and ragged round the bottom as that old 
fellow’s. Did n’t you notice his cracked boots w’hich 
let in water, and that cravat in place of a shirt? That 
man slept last night under a bridge.” 

“ He ma}’ be a nobleman and have burnt his candle 
at both ends, — that ’s nothing new ! ” cried Desroches. 

“ No,” replied Boucard, in the midst of much laughter, 
“I maintain he was a brewer in 1789 and a colonel 
under the Republic.” 


Colonel Chahert. 


103 


“ Ha ! I ’ll bet tickets for a play all round that he 
never was a soldier,” said Godeschal. 

“ Done,” said Boucard. 

“Monsieur, monsieur!” called the gutter-jumper, 
opening the window. 

“What are you doing, Simonnin?” asked Boucard. 

“I’m calling him back to know if he is a colonel or 
a porter, — he ought to know, himself.” 

'“ What shall we say to him?” exclaimed Godeschal. 

“ Leave it to me,” said Boucard. 

The poor man re-entered timidl}^ with his e3"es low- 
ered, perhaps not to show his hunger by looking too 
eagerly at the food. 

“ Monsieur,” said Boucard, “ will j^ou have the kind- 
ness to give us j^our name, so that Monsieur Derville 
may — ” 

“ Chabert.” 

‘ ‘ The colonel who was killed at Eylau ? asked 
Hure, who had not yet spoken, but was anxious to 
get in his joke like the rest. 

“The same, monsieur,” answered the old man, with 
classic simplicity’. Then he left the room. 

“ Thunder I ” 

“Sold!” 

“Puff!” 

“Oh!” 

“ Ah ! ” 


104 


Colonel Cliahert. 


“ Bourn ! ” 

“The old oddity!” 

“ Done for ! ” 

“ Monsieur Desroches, 3"ou and I will go to the the- 
atre for nothing ! ” cried Hure to the fourth clerk, with 
a rap on the shoulders fit to have killed a rhinoceros. 

Then followed a chorus of shouts, laughs, and excla- 
mations, to describe which we should have to use all 
the onomatopoeias of the language. 

“ Which theatre shall we choose?” 

“The Opera,” said the head-clerk. 

“ In the first place,” said Godeschal, “ I never said 
theatre at all. I can take you, if I choose, to Madame 
Saqui.” 

“ Madame Saqui Is not a play,” said Desroches. 

“What’s a play?” retorted Godeschal. “Let’s 
first establish the fact. What did I bet, gentlemen ? tick- 
ets for a pla3\ What ’s a play ? a thing we go to see — ” 

“ If that ’s so, 3’ou can take us to see the water run- 
ning under the Pont Neuf,” interrupted Simonnin. 

“ — see for money,” went on Godeschal. 

“ But 3"ou can see a great many things for money 
that are not plays. The definition is not exact,” said 
Desroches. 

“ But just listen to me — ” 

“You are talking nonsense, my dear fellow,” said 
Boucard. 


' Colonel Chahert. 


105 


“ Do you call Curtius a play?’* asked Godeschal. 

“No,” said the head-clerk, “I call it a gallery of 
wax figures.” 

“I’ll bet a hundred francs to a sou,” retorted Godes- 
chal, “ that Curtius’s galleiy constitutes a collection of 
things which may legally be called a play. They com- 
bine into one thing which can be seen at different prices 
according to the seats 3'OU occupy" — ” 

“ You can’t get out of it ! ” said Simonnin. 

“ Take care I don’t box j^our ears ! ” said Godeschal. 

The clerks all shrugged their shoulders. 

“ Besides, we don’t know that that old baboon wasn’t 
making fun of us,” he continued, changing his argu- 
ment amid roars of laughter. “The fact is, Colonel 
Chabei t is as dead as a door-nail ; his widow married 
Comte Ferraud, councillor of state. Madame Ferraud 
is one of our clients.” 

“ The cause stands over for to-morrow,” said Bou- 
card. “ Come, get to work, gentlemen. Heavens and 
earth ! nothing ever gets done here. Finish with that 
petition, — it has to be sent in before the session of the 
fourth court which meets to-day. Come, to work ! ” 

“If it was really Colonel Chabert, would n’t he have 
kicked that little Simonnin when he pretended to be 
deaf ? ” said the provincial Hure, considering that ob- 
servation quite as conclusive as those of Godeschal. 

“ Nothing is decided,” said Boucard. “ Let us agree 


106 


Colonel Chabert. 


to accept the second tier of boxes at the Fran^ais and 
see Talma in Nero. Simonnin can sit in the pit.” 

Thereupon the head-clerk sat down at his desk, and 
the others followed his example. 

“ Rendered June one thousand eight hundred and 
fourteen — Write it in letters, mind,” said Godeschal. 
“ Have you written it?” 

“Yes,” replied the cop3dsts and the engrosser, whose 
pens began to squeak along the stamped paper with a 
noise, well known in all law-offices, like that of scores 
of cockchafers tied by schoolbooks in a paper bag. 

“ And we pray that the gentlemen of this tribunal — 
Hold on ! let me read that sentence over to myself ; I 
don’t know what I ’m about.” 

“ Fort^k-six — should think that often happened — 
and three, forto’-nine,” said Boucard. 

“ We pray f resumed Godeschal, having re-read his 
clause, “ that the gentlemen of this tribunal will not 
show less magnanimity than the august author of the 
ordinance^ and that they will deny the miserable pre- 
tensions of the administration of the grand chancellor 
of the Legion of honor by determining the jurispru- 
dence of this matter in the broad sense in which we have 
established it here — ” 

“Monsieur Godeschal, don’t o’ou want a glass of 
water?” said the gutter-jumper. 

“ That imp of a Simonnin ! ” said Boucard. “ Come 


Colonel Chahert. 


107 


here, saddle 3’our double-soled horses, and take this 
package and skip over to the Invalides.” 

“ TFAicA we have established it here — ” went on 
Godeschal. “Did 3’ou 'get to that? Well, then add 
in the interests of Madame (full length) la Vicomtesse 
de Grandlieu — ” 

“What’s that?” cried the head clerk, “the idea of 
petitioning in that affair ! Vicomtesse de Grandlieu 
against the Legion of honor ! Ah ! 3’ou must be a 
fool ! Have the goodness to put awa}^ your copies and 
3’our minute, — they ’ll answer for the Navarreins affair 
against the monasteries. It ’s late, and I must be off 
with the other petitions ; I ’ll attend to that m3'self at 
the Palais.” 

Towards one o’clock in the morning the individual 
calling himself Colonel Chabert knocked at the door of 
Maitre Derville, solicitor in the court of common pleas 
for the department of the Seine. The porter told him 
that Monsieur Derville had not 3’et come in. The old 
man declared he had an appointment and passed up to 
the rooms of the celebrated lawyer, who, young as he 
was, was even then considered one of the best legal 
heads in France. Having rung and been admitted, the 
persistent client was not a little astonished to find the 
head-clerk laying out on a table in the dining-room a 
number of documents relating to affairs which were to 
come up on the morrow. The clerk, not less astonished 


108 


Colonel Chahert, 


at the apparition of the old man, bowed to the colonel 
and asked him to sit down, which he did. 

“Upon my word, monsieur, I thought you were 
joking when you named such a singular hour for a 
consultation,” said the old man, with the factitious 
liveliness of a ruined man who tries to smile. 

“ The clerks were joking and telling the truth also,” 
said the head-clerk, going on with his work. “Mon- 
sieur Derville selects this hour to examine his causes, 
give directions for the suits, and plan his defences. 
His extraordinary intellect works freer at this hour, 
the only one in which he can get the silence and tran- 
quillity he requires to evolve his ideas. You are the 
third person only who has been admitted here for a 
consultation at this time of night. After Monsieur 
Derville comes in he will talk over each affair, read 
everything connected with it, and spend perhaps five 
or six hours at his work ; then he rings for me, and 
explains his intentions. In the morning, from ten to 
two, he listens to his clients ; the rest of the day he 
passes in visiting. In the evening he goes about in 
society to keep up his relations with the great world. 
He has no other time than at night to delve into his 
cases, rummage the arsenals of the Code, make his 
plans of campaign. He is determined, out of love for 
his profession, not to lose a single case. And for that 
reason he won’t take all that are brought to him, as 


Colonel Chahert, 


109 


other lawyers do. That 's his life ; it *s extraordinarily 
active. He makes a lot of money.” 

The old man was silent as he listened to this explana- 
tion, and his singular face assumed a look so devoid of 
all intelligence that the clerk after glancing at him once 
or twice took no further notice of him. A few moments 
later Derville arrived, in evening dress ; his head-clerk 
opened the door to him and then went back to the 
papers. The j’oung lawyer looked amazed w’hen he 
saw in the dim light the strange client who awaited him. 
Colonel Chabert was as motionless as the wax figures 
of Curtius’s gallery" where Godeschal proposed to take 
his comrades. This immovabilit}- might have been less 
noticeable than it was, if it had not, as it were, com- 
pleted the supernatural impression conveyed by the 
whole appearance of the man. The old soldier was 
lean and shrunken. The concealment of his forehead, 
which was carefully hidden beneath a wig brushed 
smoothly over it, gave a mysterious expression to his 
person. The eyes seemed covered with a film ; you 
might have thought them bits of dirt}’ mother-of-pearl, 
their bluish reflections quivering in the candle-light. 
The pale, livid, hatchet face, if I may borrow that 
term, seemed dead. An old black-silk stock was fas- 
tened round the neck. The shadow of the room hid 
the body so effectually below the dark line of the ragged 
article that a man of vivid imagination might have 


110 


Colonel Chahert. 


taken that old head for a sketch drawn at random on 
the wall or for a portrait Rembrandt without its 
frame. The brim of the hat worn bj the strange old 
man cast a black line across the upper part of his face. 
This odd effect, though perfectly natural, brought out 
in abrupt contrast the white wrinkles, the stiffened 
lines, the unnatural hue of that cadaverous counte- 
nance. The absence of all motion in the bod}", all 
warmth in the glance, combined with a certain ex- 
pression of mental alienation, and with the degrading 
symptoms which characterize idioc}", to give that face a 
nameless horror which no words can describe. 

But an observer, and especially a lawyer, would have 
seen in that blasted man the signs of some deep an- 
guish, indications of a misery that degraded that face 
as the drops of rain falling from the heavens on pure 
marble gradually disfigure it. A doctor, an author, a 
magistrate would have felt intuitively a whole drama as 
the}" looked at this sublime wreck, whose least merit 
was a resemblance to those fantastic sketches drawn by 
artists on the margins of their lithographic stones as 
they sit conversing with their friends. 

When the stranger saw the lawyer he shuddered with 
the convulsive movement which seizes a poet when a 
sudden noise recalls him from some fecund revery 
amid the silence of the night. The old man rose 
quickly and took off his hat to the young lawyer. The 


Colonel Chahert. 


Ill 


leather that lined it was no doubt damp with grease, for 
his wig stuck to it without his knowledge and exposed 
his skull, horribly mutilated and disfigured Jby a scar 
running from the crown of his head to the angle of his 
right e3’e and forming a raised welt. The sudden re- 
moval of that dirty wig, worn b}" the poor soul to con- 
ceal his wound, caused no desire to laugh in the minds 
of the two young men ; so awful was the sight of that 
skull. “The mind fled through it!” was the first 
thought suggested to them as they saw that wound. 

“If he is not Colonel Chabert he is some bold 
trooper,” thought Boucard. 

“ Monsieur,” said Derville, “ to whom have I the 
honor of speaking?” 

“ To Colonel Chabert.” 

“ Which one?” 

“The one who w^as killed at Eylau,” replied the old 
man. 

Hearing those extraordinary words the clerk and the 
law^^er looked at each other as if to say, “He is 
mad.” 

“Monsieur,” said the colonel, “I desire to confide 
my secrets to 3’ou in private.” 

The intrepidity which characterizes lawyers is worthy 
of remark. Whether from their habit of receiving 
great numbers of persons, whether from an abiding 
sense of the protection of the law, or fi’om perfect 


112 


Colonel Chahert, 


confidence in their ministry, certain it is they go 
ever}’ where and take all risks, like priests and doc- 
tors. Derville made a sign to Boucard, who left the 
room. 

“ Monsieur,” said the lawyer, “ during the day I am 
not very chary of my time ; but in the middle of the 
night every moment is precious to me. Therefore, be 
brief and concise. Tell j’our facts without digression ; 
I will ask you any explanations I may find necessary. 
Go on.” 

Bidding his strange client be seated, the young man 
sat down before the table, and while listening to the tale 
of the late colonel he turned over the pages of a brief. 

“Monsieur,” said the deceased, “ perhaps 3’ou know 
that I commanded a regiment of cavalry at Eylau. I 
was the chief cause of the success of .Murat’s famous 
charge which won the day. Unhappily for me, my 
death is given as an historic fact in ‘ Victories and 
Conquests’ where all the particulars are related. We 
cut the three Russian lines in two ; then they closed be- 
hind us and we were obliged to cut our way back again. 
Just before we reached the Emperor, having dispersed 
the Russians, a troop of the enemy’s cavalry met us. I 
flung myself upon them. Two Russian officers, actual 
giants, attacked me together. One of them cut me 
over the head with his sabre, which went through ever}’- 
thing, even to the silk cap which I wore, and laid m}^ 


Colonel Chahert, 


113 


skull open. I fell from my horse. Murat came up 
to support us, and he and his whole part}', fifteen hun- 
dred men, rode over me. They reported my death to 
the Emperor, who sent (for he loved me a little, the mas- 
ter !) to see if there were no hope of saving a man to 
whom he owed the vigor of our attack. He despatched 
two surgeons to find me and bring me in to the ambu- 
lances, saying — perhaps too hurriedly, for he had work 
to attend to — ‘ Go and see if my poor Chabert is still 
living.* Those cursed saw-bones had just seen me 
trampled under the hoofs of two regiments ; no doubt 
they never took the trouble to feel my pulse, but re- 
ported me as dead. The certificate of my death was 
doubtless drawn up in due form of military law.** 

Graduall}', as he listened to his client, who expressed 
himself with perfect clearness, and related facts that 
were quite possible, though somewhat strange, the 
3'oung law3'er pushed away his papers, rested his left 
elbow on the table, put his head on his hand, and 
looked fixed l}’^ at the colonel. 

“Are 3'ou aware, monsieur,*’ he said, “that I am 
the solicitor of the Countess Ferraud, widow of Colonel 
Chabert ? ** 

“ Of my wife? Yes, monsieur. And therefore, after 
man}^ fruitless efforts to obtain a hearing from lawyers, 
who all thought me mad, I determined to come to you. 
I shall speak of my sorrows later. Allow me now to 

8 


114 


Colonel Chabert. 


state the facts, and explain to you how the}' probably 
happened, rather than how they actuall}’ did happen. 
Certain ch’cum stances, which can never be known ex- 
cept to God Almighty, oblige me to relate much in the 
form of hj'potheses. I must tell you, for instance, that 
the wounds I received probably produced something 
like lockjaw, or threw me into a state analogous to a 
disease called, I believe, cataleps}’. Otherwise, how 
can 1 suppose that I was stripped of my clothing and 
flung into a common grave, according to the customs of 
war, by the men whose business it was to bury the 
dead? Here let me state a circumstance which I only 
knew much later than the event which I am forced to 
call my death. In 1814 I met in Stuttgard an old cav- 
alry sergeant of my regiment. That dear man — the 
only human being willing to recognize me, of whom I 
will presentl}^ speak to you — explained to me the ex- 
traordinary circumstances of my preservation. He said 
that my horse received a bullet in the body at the same 
moment when I myself was wounded. Horse and rider 
were therefore knocked over together like a stand of 
muskets. In turning, either to the right or to the 
left, I had doubtless been protected by the body of 
m}^ horse which saved me from being crushed by the 
riders or hit by bullets.” 

The old man paused for a moment as if to collect 
himself and then resumed : — 


Colonel Chabert. 


115 


“ When I came to m3’self, monsieur, I was in a place 
and in an atmosphere of wdiich I could give 3-ou no 
idea, even if I talked for da3’s. The air I breathed was 
mephitic. I tried to move but I found no space. M3" 
e3"es were open but I saw nothing. The want of air 
was the worst sign, and it showed me the dangers of m3* 
position. I felt I was in some place where the atmos- 
phere was stagnant, and that I should die of it. This 
thought overcame the sense of extreme pain which had 
brought me to my senses. M3’ ears hummed violentl3’. 
I heard, or thought I heard (for I can affirm nothing), 
groans from the hehp of dead bodies among whom I 
lay. Though the recollection of those moments is dark, 
though m3’ memoiy is confused, and in spite of still 
greater sufferings which I experienced later and which 
have bewildered m3’ ideas, there are nights, even now, 
when I think I hear those smothered moans. But there 
was something more horrible than even those cries, — a 
silence that I have never known elsewhere, the silence 
of the grave. At last, raising m3' hands and feeling 
for the dead, I found a void between m3" head and the 
human carrion about me. I could even measure the 
space thus left to me b3’ some mere chance, the cause 
of which I did not know. It seemed as if, thanks to 
the carelessness or to the haste with which we had been 
flung pell-mell into the trench, that two dead bodies 
had fallen across each other above me, so as to form an 


116 


Colonel Chahert, 


angle like that of two cards which children lay together 
to make houses. Quickl}’ feeling in all directions, — for 
I had no time to idle, — I happily came across an arm, 
the arm of a Hercules, detached from its bod}" ; and 
those good bones saved me ! Without that unlooked- 
for succor I must have perished. But now, with a 
fury you will readil}" understand, I began to work m}^ 
way upward through the bodies which separated me 
from the layer of earth hastil}^ flung over us, — I say 
‘us,* as though there were others living. I worked 
with a will, monsieur, for here I am ! Still, I don’t 
know to-da}" how it was that I managed to tear through 
the covering of flesh that lay between me and life. I 
had, as it were, three arms. That Herculean crow-bar, 
which 1 used carefully, brought me a little air conflned 
among the bodies which it helped me to displace, and I 
economized my breathing. At last I saw daylight, but 
through the snow, monsieur! Just then I noticed for 
the first time that my head was cut open. Happily, 
my blood — that of m3" comrades, possibl}', how should 
I know ? or the bleeding flesh of my horse — had co- 
agulated on m3" wound and formed a natural plaster. 
But in spite of that scab I fainted when m3’ head came 
in contact with the snow. The little heat still left in 
m3" body melted the snow about me, and when I came 
to myself my head was in the middle of a little opening, 
through which I shouted as long as I was able. But 


Colonel Chahert. 


IIT 


the sun had risen and I was little likely to be heard. 
People seemed alread}’ in the fields. I raised myself to 
m}^ feet, making stepping-stones of the dead whose 
thighs were solid, — for it was n’t the moment to stop 
and say, ‘ Honor to heroes ! ’ 

“ In short, monsieur,” continued the old man, who 
had stopped speaking for a moment, “after going 
through the anguish — if that word describes the rage — 
of seeing those cursed Germans, ay, many of them, 
run awaj" when they heard the voice of a man they 
could not see, I was at last taken from mj’ living grave 
b}" a woman, daring enough or inquisitive enough to 
come close to my head, which seemed to grow from the 
ground like a mushroom. The woman fetched her hus- 
band, and together they took me to their poor hovel. 
It seems that there I had a return of cataleps}’, — allow 
me that term with which to describe a state of which I 
have no idea, but which I judge, from what m3" hosts 
told me, must have been an effect of that disease. I lay 
for six months between life and death, not speaking, 
or wandering in mind when I did speak. At last my 
benefactors placed me in the hospital at Heilsberg. Of 
course 3’ou understand, monsieur, that I issued from 
■m3" grave as naked as I came from m3" mother’s womb ; 
so that when, man3" months later, I remembered that I 
was Colonel Chabert, and endeavored to make my 
nurses treat me with more respect than if I were a 


118 


Colonel Chahert, 


poor devil of a private, all the men in the ward laughed. 
Happily for me, the surgeon made it a point of honor 
or vanity to cure me ; and he naturally became inter- 
ested in his patient. When I spoke to him in a con- 
nected manner of my former life, that good man (his 
name was Sparchmann) had my statements recorded in 
the legal forms of his country’', also a statement of the 
miraculous manner in which I had escaped from the 
trench, and the da}^ and hour m}’ benefactress and her 
husband had rescued me, together with the nature and 
exact position of my wounds and careful description 
of my person. Well, monsieur, I do not possess a 
single one of those important papers, nor the declara- 
tion I made before a notary at Heilsberg to establish 
my identit}’. The events of the war drove us from the 
town, and from that day I have wandered like a vaga- 
bond, begging m3’ bread, treated as a lunatic when I 
told m3' stor3’, unable to earn a single sou that would 
enable me to send for those papers, which alone can 
prove the truth of what I sa3' and restore me to m3^ 
social status. Often m3' physical sufferings have kept 
me for weeks and months in some obscure countr3’ town, 
where the greatest kindness has been shown to the sick 
Frenchman, but where the3’ laughed in his face when he 
asserted he was Colonel Chabert. For a long while 
such doubts and laughter made me furious, and that in- 
jured my cause, and once I was shut up as a madman 


Colonel Chahert. 


119 


at Stuttgard. You can imagine, from what I have told 
you, that there were reasons to lock me up. After two 
years in a madhouse, where I was forced to hear my 
keepers say : ‘ This poor man fancies he was once Col- 
onel Chabert,’ to visitors, who replied compassionatel}', 
‘ Ah, poor man ! ’ I m3^self was convinced of the im- 
possibilit}" of my stoiy being true ; I grew sad, resigned, 
tranquil, and I ceased to call myself Colonel Chabert, 
so as to get my release and return to France. Oh, mon- 
sieur ! to see Paris once more ! it was a jo3" I — ” 

With those unfinished words Colonel Chabert sank 
into a revery, which the law^^er did not disturb. 

“ Monsieur,” resumed the client presently, “ one fine 
da}^ a spring da}", they gave me freedom and ten 
thalers, on the ground that I talked sensibl}" on all sub- 
jects and had given up calling mj-self Colonel Chabert ; 
and, God knows, at that time mj" name was disagree- 
able to me, and has been at intervals ever since. I 
would like not to be myself ; the sense of m3" rights 
kills me. If ray illness had only taken from me forever 
the remembrance of m}^ past existence, I might be 
happ3’. I might have re-entered the service under some 
other name ; and, who knows ? perhaps I should have 
ended as a Russian or an Austrian field-marshal.” 

“Monsieur,” said the law3"er, “3"ou have upset all 
m3’ ideas ; I fanc}" I dream as I listen to 3’ou. Let us 
pause here for a moment, I beg of 3"ou.” 


120 


Colonel Chahert, 


“ You are the only person,” said the colonel sadl}% 
who have ever listened to me patiently. No lawyer 
has been willing to lend me ten nai)oleons, that I might 
send to German}- for the papers necessaiy for my suit.” 

“What suit?” asked the lawj^er, who had forgotten 
the unfortunate present position of his client, as he 
listened to the recital of his past misery. 

“Why, monsieur, you are well aware that the Com- 
tesse Ferraud is my wife. She possesses an income of 
thirty thousand francs which belongs to me, and she 
refuses to give me one penn}' of it. When I tell this to 
lawj’ers and to men of common-sense, when I, a beg- 
gar, propose to sue a count and countess, when I, 
risen from the dead, deny the proofs of my death, the}^ 
put me off, — they refuse to listen to me, either with 
that coldl}^ polite air with which 3’ou lawyers know so 
well how to rid yourselves of hapless creatures, or 
brutally, as men do when they think they are dealing 
with a swindler or a madman. I have been buried 
beneath the dead, but now I am buried beneath the 
living, — beneath facts, beneath records, beneath society 
itself, which seeks to thrust me back underground ! ” 

“ Monsieur, have the goodness to sue, to prosecute 
now,” said the lawyer. 

“Have the goodness! Ah!” exclaimed the unfor- 
tunate old man, taking the hand of the young lawj'er ; 
“that is the first polite word I have heard since — 


Colonel Chahe 7 't. 


121 


He wept. Gratitude stifled his voice. The all-pene- 
trative, indescribable eloquence of look, gesture, — even 
silence, — clinched Derville’s conviction, and touched 
him keenly. 

“Listen to me, monsieur,” he said. “I won three 
hundred francs at cards to-night ; I can surel}" afl’ord to 
give half that sum to procure the happiness of a man. 
I will make all the investigations and orders necessary 
to obtain the papers you mention ; and, until their 
arrival, I will allow you five francs a day. If 3^ou are 
Colonel Chabert, you will know how to pardon the small- 
ness of the loan offered by a young man who has his 
fortune to make. Continue.” 

The self-st3ded colonel remained for an instant mo- 
tionless, and as if stupefied ; his great misfortunes had, 
perhaps, destroj^d his powers of belief. If he were 
seeking to recover his illustrious military fame, his 
home, his fortune, — himself, in short, — it ma^^ have 
been only in obedience to that inexplicable feeling, that 
germ in the hearts of all men, to which we owe the 
researches of the alchemists, the passion for gloiy, the 
discoveries of astronomy and of ph3’sics, — all that 
urges a man to magnify himself b3" the magnitude of 
the facts or the ideas that are a part of him. The ego 
was now but a secondary consideration to his mind, 
just as the vanity of triumph or the satisfaction of gain 
are dearer to a man who bets than the object of his 


122 


Colonel Chahert. 


wager. The words of the 3’oung lawyer came, there- 
fore, like a miracle to this man, repudiated for the last 
ten years by wife, justice, by the whole social crea- 
tion. To receive from a law3’er those ten gold pieces 
so long denied him, b}^ so man}’ persons, in so many 
ways ! The colonel was like the lady who had been ill 
so long, that when she was cured she thought she was 
suffering from a new malady. There are joys in which 
we no longer believe ; they come, and we find them 
thunderbolts, — they blast us. So now the poor man's 
gratitude was so deep that he could not utter it. He 
might have seemed cold to a superficial mind, but Der- 
ville saw integrity in that very stupor. A swindler 
would have spoken. 

“ Where was I?" said the colonel, with the guileless- 
ness of a child or a soldier ; for there is much of the 
child in the true soldier, and nearly always something 
of a soldier in a child, especially in France. 

“ At Stuttgard ; they had set you at liberty.” 

“ You know my wife?” asked the colonel. 

“ Yes,” replied Derville, with a nod of his head. 

“ How is she? ” 

“ Always fascinating.” 

The old man made a gesture with his hand, and 
seemed to conquer some secret pang with the grave 
and solemn resignation that characterizes men who have 
been tried in the fire and blood of battle-fields. 


Colonel Chahert. 


123 


“ Monsieur,” he said, with a sort of gayety ; for he 
breathed anew, poor soul ; he had issued a second 
time from the grave ; he had broken through a crust of 
ice and snow harder to melt than that which once had 
frozen his wounded head ; he inhaled the air as though 
he were just issuing from a dungeon. “ Monsieur,” he 
said, “ if I were a handsome fellow I should n’t be where 
I am now. Women believe men when the}’ lard their 
sentences with words of love. Then they ’ll fetch and 
carr}', and come and go, and do anything to serve you. 
The}’ ’ll intrigue ; they ’ll swear to facts ; they ’ll play 
the devil for the man they love. But how could I make 
a woman listen to one like me? With a face like a 
death’s head, and clothed like a sans-culotte, I was 
more of an Esquimau than a Frenchman, — I, who in 
1799 was the finest coxcomb in the service! — I, Cha- 
bert, count of the Empire I At last the day came when 
I knew I was an outcast on the streets, like a pariah 
dog. That day 1 met the sergeant I told you of ; his 
name was Boutin. That poor devil and I made the 
finest pair of broken-down old brutes I have ever seen. 
I met him, and recognized him ; but he couldn’t even 
guess who I was. We went into a tavern. When I 
told him my name his mouth split open with a roar of 
laughter like a burst mortar. Monsieur, that laugh is 
among the bitterest of my sorrows. It revealed, with- 
out disguise, the changes there were in me. I saw 


124 


Colonel Chahert. 


in3’self unrecognizable, even to the humblest and most 
grateful of my friends ; for I had once saved Boutin’s 
life, though that was a return for something I owed 
him. I need n’t tell 3’ou the whole stor}’ ; the thing 
happened in Italj', at Ravenna. The house where Bou- 
tin saved me from being stabbed was none too decent. 
At that time I was not colonel, onl}^ a trooper, like 
Boutin. Happil}’, there were circumstances in the affair 
known onlj^ to him and me ; when I reminded him of 
them, his incredulity lessened. Then I told him the 
stor}" of my extraordinaiy fate. Though m3’ e3’es and 
m3^ voice were, he told me, strangel3’ altered ; though I 
had neither hair, nor teeth, nor e3’ebrows, and was as 
white as an albino, he did finally recognize his old colo- 
nel in the beggar before him, after putting a vast number 
of questions to which I answered triumphantl3’. 

“ Ah ! ” went on the old soldier, after a moment’s 
pause, “he told me his adventures too, and they were 
hardly less extraordinary’ than mine. He was just back 
from the borders of China, to which he had escaped 
from Siberia. He told me of the disasters of the Rus- 
sian campaign and Napoleon’s first abdication ; that 
news was another of my' worst pangs. We were two 
strange wrecks drifting over the globe, as the storms of 
ocean drift the pebbles from shore to shore. We had 
each seen Egypt, Syria, Spain, Russia, Holland, Ger- 
many, Italy, Dalmatia, England, China, Tartary, Si- 


Oolonel Chahert. 


125 


beria ; nothing was left for us to know but the Indies 
and America. Boutin, who was more active on his 
legs than I, agreed to go to Paris as quickh’ as he 
could, and tell my wife the state in which I was. I 
wrote a long and detailed letter to Madame Chabert ; it 
was the fourth I had written her. Monsieur, if I had 
had relatives of my own, the thing could not have hap- 
pened ; but, I must tell you plainly, I was a foundling, a 
soldier whose patrimonj’^ was his courage, the world his 
family, France his countr}^ God his sole protector, — 
no ! I am wrong ; I had a father, — the Emperor ! 
Ah ! if he, dear man, were still among us ; if he saw 
‘ his Chabert,’ as he called me, in such a plight, he 
would be furious. But what’s to be done? our sun has 
set ; we are all left out in the cold ! After all, political 
events might be the reason of m}^ wife’s silence ; at least 
I thought so. Boutin departed. He was lucky, he was, 
poor fellow ! he had two white bears who danced and 
kept him in food. I could not accompany him ; my 
pains were so great I could not go long distances. I 
wept when we parted, having walked as far as I had 
strength with the bears and him. At Carlsruhe I was 
taken with neuralgia in my head, and lay six weeks in 
the straw of an inn barn, 

“ Ah ! monsieur,” continued the unhappy man, “ there 
is no end to what I might tell you of my miserable life. 
Moral anguish, before which all physical sufferings are 


126 


Colonel Chahert. 


as nought, excites less pit}^ because it is not seen. I 
remember weeping before a mansion in Strasburg where 
I once gave a ball, and where the}' now refused me a 
crust of bread. Having agreed with Boutin as to the 
road I should follow, I went to eveiy post-office on my 
wa}^ expecting to find a letter and some mone}'. I 
reached Paris at last without a line Despair was 
in my heart! Boutin must be dead, I thought; and 
I was right ; the poor fellow died at Waterloo, as I 
heard later and accidental!}’. His errand to my wife 
w'as no doubt fruitless. Well, I reached Paris just 
as the Cossacks entered it. To me, that was grief upon 
grief. When I saw those Russians in France I no 
longer remembered that I had neither shoes on my feet 
nor money in my pocket. Yes, monsieur, my clothes 
were literally in shreds. The evening of my arrival I 
was forced to bivouac in the w^oods of Claye. The 
chilliness of the night gave me a sort of illness, I 
hardly know what it was, which seized me as I was 
crossing the faubourg Saint-Martin. I fell, half-uncon- 
scious, close by the door of an ironmonger. When I 
came to my senses I was in a bed at the Hotel-Dieu. 
There I stayed a month in some comfort; then I was 
, discharged. I had no money, but I was cured and I 
had my feet on the blessed pavements of Paris. With 
what joy and speed I made my way to the rue du Mont- 
Blanc, where I supposed my wife was living in my 


Colonel Chahert, 


127 


house. Ball ! the rue clu Mont-Blanc had become the 
rue de la Chaussee-d’Antin. M3’ house was no longer 
standing ; it was pulled down. Speculators had built 
houses in m3" gardens. Not knowing that my’ wife had 
married Monsieur Ferraud, 1 could hear nothing of her. 
At last I went to an old law3’er who formerl3’ took charge 
of my affairs. The good man was dead, and his office 
had passed into the hands of a 3’ounger man. The 
latter informed me, to m3" great astonishment, of the 
settlement of m3’ estate, the marriage of my wife, and 
the birth of her two children. When I told him that 
I was Colonel Chabert, he laughed so loiidh’ in m3" face 
that I turned and left him without a word. M3" deten- 
tion at Stuttgart made me mindful of Charenton, and I 
resolved to act prudentl3". Then, monsieur, knowing 
where my wife lived, I made m3’ wa3’ to the house — 
Ah ! ” cried the colonel, with a gesture of intense anger, 
“ I was not received when I gave a borrowed name, but 
when I sent in m3" own I was turned out of the house ! 
I have stood night after night leaning against the but- 
tress of her porte-cochere to see her returning from a 
ball or from the theatre. I have plunged my e3’es into 
tliat carriage where I could see the woman who is mine 
and who is not mine ! Oh ! from that da3" I have lived 
for vengeance,” cried the old man, in a hollow voice, 
standing suddenly erect in front of Derville. “ She 
knows I am living ; she has received three letters which 


128 


Colonel ChaherU 


I have written to her since m3’ return. She loves me 
no longer ! I — I don’t know if I love her or if I hate 
her ; I long for her and I curse her b3' turns ! She 
owes her prosperit3’ and all her happiness to me, and 
she denies me even the meanest succor ! Sometimes 
I don’t know where to turn ! ” 

The old man fell back into a chair, motionless and 
silent. Derville too was silent, contemplating his 
client. 

“ The matter is serious,” he said at last in a mechan- 
ical wa3\ “Even admitting the authenticitj" of the 
papers which ought to be found at Heilsberg, it is not 
clear that we can establish our case, — certainl3’ not at 
once. The suit will have to go before three courts. 
I must reflect at m3’ leisure over such a case. It is 
exceptional.” 

“ Oh ! ” replied the colonel, coldl3’, lifting his head 
with a proud gesture, “ if I am compelled to succumb, 
I can die, — but not alone.” 

With the words the old man seemed to vanish ; the 
e3’es of the man of energy shone with the fires of desire 
and vengeance. 

“ Perhaps we shall have to compromise,” said the 
lawyer. 

“ Compromise !” repeated Colonel Chabert. “Am 
1 dead, or am I living?” 

“Monsieur,” said the lawyer, “you will, I hope, 


Colonel ChaherU 


129 


follow my advice. Your cause shall be my cause. 
You will soon, I trust, see the true interest I take 
in 3’our situation, which is almost without precedent 
in legal annals. Meantime let me give 3’ou an order 
on my notary", who will remit you lift}’ francs every 
ten days on 3’our receipt. It is not desirable that 3'ou 
should come here for this money. If 3’ou are Colonel 
Chabert 3 011 ought not to be beholden to an3^ one. I 
shall make these advances in the form of a loan. You 
have propert3^ to recover ; you are a rich man.” 

This last delicate consideration for his feelings 
brought tears from the old man’s eyes. Derville rose 
abruptl3% for assuredl3^ it is not the thing for a law3"er 
to show feeling ; he went into his private study and 
returned presentl3’ with an unsealed letter, which he 
gave to Colonel Chabert. When the old man took it 
he felt two gold pieces within the paper. 

“Tell me precisel3' what the papers are; give me 
the exact name of the town and kingdom,” said the 
law3"er. 

The colonel dictated the necessary information and 
corrected the spelling of the names. Then he took 
his hat in one hand, looked at Derville, offered him 
the other hand, a horn3" hand, and said in a simple 
way, — 

“ After the Emperor 3’ou are the man to wdiom I 
owe most. You are a noble man.” 

9 


130 


Colonel Chahert, 


The lawyer clasped the colonel’s hand, and went 
with him to the stairway to light him down. 

“ Boucard,” said the lawj^er to his head-clerk, whom 
he summoned, “ I have just heard a tale which may 
cost me some mone}’’. If I am deceived I shall never 
regret what I pay, for I shall have seen the greatest 
comedian of our time.” 

“When the colonel reached the street, he stopped 
under a lamp, drew the two pieces of twenty francs 
each from the letter which the law3’er had given him, 
and looked at them for a moment in the dim light. He 
saw gold for the first time in nine 3’ears. 

“ 1 can smoke cigars,” he said to himself. 

About three months after the nocturnal consultation 
of Colonel Chabert with Derville, the notary whom the 
latter had directed to pay the stipend he allowed to his 
singular client went to the lawyer’s office one da}^ to 
confer on some important matter, and opened the con- 
versation by asking for the six hundred francs he had 
alread}^ paid to the old soldier. 

“ Do you find it amusing to support the old arm}"? ” 
said the notar}’, laughing. His name was Crottat, — a 
young man who had just bought a practice in which he 
w"as head-clerk, the master of which, a certain Roguin^ 
had lately absconded after a frightful failure. 

“ Thank you, my dear fellow, for reminding me of 


Colonel ChdberU 


131 


that affair,” replied Derville. “My philanthrop}’ does 
not go be3’ond twenty-five loiiis ; I fear I have been the 
dupe of n)3’ patriotism.” 

As Derville utterei the words his eyes lighted on a 
packet of papers the head-clerk had laid upon his desk. 
His attention was drawn to one of the letters hy the 
postmarks, oblong, square, and triangular, and red 
and blue stamped upon it in the Prussian, Austrian, 
Bavarian, and French post-offices. 

“ Ah ! ” said he, laughing, “ here ’s the conclusion of 
the corned}^ ; now we shall see if I have been taken in.” 

He took up the letter and opened it, but was unable 
to read a word, for it was in German. 

“Boucard! ” he called, opening the door and hold- 
ing out the letter to his head-clerk, “ go yourself and 
get that letter translated, and come back with it as fast 
as 3’ou can.” 

The Berlin notary to whom Derville had written now 
replied by informing the latter that the papers he had 
asked for would reach him a few days after this letter 
of advice. Thej^ were all, he said, perfectly regular, 
and were fully certified with the necessary legal forms. 
He added, moreover, that nearly all the witnesses to 
the facts were still living, and that the woman to whom 
Monsieur le Comte Chabert owed his life could be found 
in a certain suburb of Heilsberg. 

“ It is getting serious,” said Derville, when Boucard 


132 


Colonel Chahert. 


had told him the substance of the letter. “But see 
here, my dear fellow, I want some information Mdiich I 
am sure 3’ou must have in 3*our office. When that old 
swindler of a Roguin — ’’ 

“We say ‘the unfortunate Roguin,’” said Crottat, 
laughing, as he interrupted Derville. 

“ Well — when that unfortunate Roguin ran off with 
eight hundred thousand francs of his clients’ mone3’’ 
and reduced many families to pauperism, what was 
done about the Cliabert property? It seems to me I 
have seen something about it among our Ferraud 
papers.” 

“Yes,” replied Crottat, “I was third clerk at the 
time, and I remember cop3’ing and stud3 ing the docu- 
ments. Rose Chapotel, wife and widow of Hyacinthe, 
called Chabert, count of the Empire, grand officer of 
the Legion of honor. The3'' had married without a con- 
tract and therefore the3’ held their propert3^ in common. 
As far as I can recollect, the assets amounted to about 
six hundred thousand francs. Before his marriage 
Comte Chabert had made a will leaving one fourth of 
the propert3' of which he might die possessed to the 
Parisian hospitals ; the State inherited another fourth. 
There was an auction sale and a distribution of the 
property, for the lawyers made good speed with the 
affair. Upon the settlement of the estate the monster 
who then ruled France made a decree restoring the 


Colonel ChaberL 


133 


amount which had gone to the Treasury to the colonel’s 
widow.” 

“ So that Comte Chabert’s individual property,” said 
Derville, “ does not amount to more than three hundred 
thousand francs ? ” 

“ Just that, old man,” said Crottat ; “ you solicitors 
do occasional!}" get things right, — though some people 
accuse 3"Ou of arguing just as well against as for the 
truth.” 

Comte Chabert, whose address was written at the 
foot of the first receipt he had given to the notary, 
lived in the faubourg Saint-Marceau, rue du Petit-Ban- 
quier, with an old sergeant of the Imperial Guard named 
Vergniaud, now a cow-keeper. When Derville reached 
the place he was obliged to go on foot to find his client, 
for his groom positively refused to drive through an un- 
paved street the ruts of which were deep enough to 
break the wheels of a cabriolet. Looking about him 
on all sides, the lawyer at length discovered at the end 
of the street nearest to the boulevard and between two • 
walls built of bones and mud, two shabby rough stone 
pillars, much defaced by wheels in spite of wooden 
posts placed in front of them. These pillars supported 
a beam covered with a tiled hood, on which, painted 
red, were the words, “Vergniaud, Covt-keeper.” To 
the right of the name was a cow, and to the left eggs, 
all painted white. The gate was open. 


134 


Colonel Chabert, 


At the farther end of a good-sized yard and opposite 
to the gate stood the house, if indeed that name right- 
fully belongs to one of those hovels built in tne suburbs 
of Paris, the squalor of which cannot be matched else- 
where, not even in the most wretched of country huts ; 
for they have all the poverty of the latter without 
their poetry. In fact, a cabin in the open country has 
the charm that pure air, verdure, the meadow vistas, 
a hill, a winding road, creepers, evergreen hedges, a 
mossy roof and rural implements can give to it ; but in 
Paris poverty is heightened only by horrors. Though 
recently built, the house seemed tumbling to ruins. 
None of its materials were originally destined for it ; 
they came from the “demolitions” w^hich are daily 
events in Paris. On a shutter made of an old sign 
Derville read the words “ Fancj'-articles.” No two of 
the windows were alike, and all were placed hap-hazard. 
The ground-floor, which seemed to be the habitable part 
of the hovel, was raised from the earth on one side, 
while on the other the rooms were sunk below a bank. 
Between the gate and the house was a slough of ma- 
nure, into which flowed the rain-water and the drainage 
from the house. The wall upon which this rickety 
building rested was surrounded by hutches in which 
rabbits brought forth their numerous young. To the 
right of the gate was the cow-shed, which communicated 
with the house through a dairy, and over it the hay-loft. 


Colonel CliaherU 


135 


To the left was a poultry-yard, a stable, and a pig- 
st}’, all of which were finished off, like the house, 
with shabby planks of white- wood nailed one above the 
other and filled in with rushes. Like most of the pur- 
lieus whence the elements of the grand dinners daily 
eaten in Paris are derived, the yard in which Derville now 
stood showed signs of the haste required for the prompt 
filling of orders. The gi’eat tin cans in which the milk 
was carried, the smaller cans with their linen stoppers 
which contained the cream, were tossed higgledy-piggle- 
dy in front of the dairy. The rags used to wipe them 
out were hanging in the sun to dry, on lines fastened 
to hooks. The steady horse, of a race extinct except 
among milk-dealers, had walked a few steps away from 
the cart and stood in front of the stable, the door of 
which was lockfed. A goat browsed upon the spindling, 
powdery vine-shoots which crept along the cracked and 
yellow walls of the house. A cat was creeping among 
the cream-cans and licking the outside of them. The 
hens, scared at Derville’s advent, scuttled away cack- 
ling, and the watch-dog barked. 

“The man who decided the victory of Eylau lives 
here ! ’’ thought Derville, taking in at a glance the 
whole of this squalid scene. 

The house seemed to be under the guardianship of 
three little ragamuffins. One, who had clambered to 
the top of a cart laden with green fodder, was throwing 


136 


Colonel Chahert. 


stones down the chimney of the next house, probably 
hoping that they would fall into the saucepans below ; 
another was trying to lead a pig up the floor of a tip- 
cart, one end of which touched the ground, while the 
third, hanging on to the other end, w^as waiting till the 
pig was fairly in to tip the cart up again. When Der- 
ville asked if that was where Monsieur Chabert lived 
none of them answered ; and all three gazed at him 
with lively stupidity, — if it is allowable to unite those 
words. Derville repeated his question without result. 
Provoked at the saucy air of the little scamps, he spoke 
sharply, in a tone which young men think they can use 
to children, and the boys broke silence with a roar of 
laughter. Derville was angr3\ The colonel, who heard 
the noise, came out of a little room near the daily and 
stood on the sill of his door with the imperturbable 
phlegm of a militaiy training. In his mouth was a 
pipe in process of being “colored,” — one of those 
humble pipes of white cla}^ with short stems called 
“ muzzle-scorchers.” He raised the peak of a cap 
which was horribl}' greasy, saw Derville, and came 
across the manure heap in haste to meet his bene- 
factor, calling out in a friendlj’ tone to the boys, 
“Silence, in the ranks!” The children became in- 
stantly and respectfull}’’ silent, showing the power the 
old soldier had over them. 

“Why haven’t 3^011 written to me?” he said to Der- 


Colonel Chabert. 


137 


ville. “ Go along by the cow-house ; see, the 3’ard is 
paved on that side,” he cried, noticing the hesitation 
of the 3’oung law^’er, who did not care to set his feet 
in the wet manure. 

Jumping from stone to stone, Derville at last reached 
the door through which the colonel had issued. Chabert 
seemed anno3'ed at the necessit3' of receiving him in the 
room he was occupying. In fact, there was onl3’ one 
chair. The colonel’s bed was merely a few bundles of 
straw on which his landlad3" had spread some ragged bits 
of old carpet, such as milk- women lay upon the seats of 
their wagons, and pick up, heaven knows where. The 
floor was neither more nor less than the earth beaten 
hard. Such dampness exuded from the nitrified walls, 
greenish in color and full of cracks, that the side where 
the colonel slept had been covered with a mat made of 
reeds. The top-coat was hanging to a nail. Two pairs 
of broken boots la3" in a corner. Not a vestige of 
under-clothing was seen. The “ Bulletins of the Grand 
Army,” reprinted by Plancher, was lying open on a 
mould3" table, as if constantl3" read b3" the colonel, 
whose face was calm and serene in the midst of this 
direful poverty. His visit to Derville seemed to have 
changed the very character of his features, on which 
the lawyer now saw traces of happy thought, the special 
gleam which hope had cast. 

“ Does the smoke of a pipe anno3" you?” he asked. 


138 


Colonel Chahert, 


offering the one chair, and that half-denuded of 
straw. 

“ Rut colonel, you are shockingly ill-lodged here ! ” 

The words were wrung from Derville by the natural 
distrust of lawyers, caused by the deplorable experience 
that comes to them so soon from the dreadful, m3’steri- 
ous dramas in which they are called professionally to 
take part. 

“ That man,’" thought Derville to himself, “ has no 
doubt spent my mone}' in gratifying the three cardinal 
virtues of a trooper, — wine, women, and cards. 

“True enough, monsieur; we don’t abound in lux- 
uiy. It is a bivouac, tempered, as j^ou ma^’ say, b}" 
friendship ; but ” (here the soldier cast a searching look 
at the law\^er) “ I have done wrong to no man, I have 
repulsed no man, and I sleep in peace.” 

Derville felt there would be a want of delicacy" in 
asking his client to account for his use of the money he 
had lent him, so he merely said: “ Why don’t yon 
come into Paris, where 3’ou could live just as cheapfy 
as 3’ou do here, and be much better off ? ” 

“Because,” replied the colonel, “the good, kind 
people I am with took me in and fed me gratis for 
a year, and how could I desert them the moment I 
got a little money? Besides, the father of these 
3^oung scamps is an Egyptian.” 

“ An Egyptian?” 


Colonel CJiahert, 


139 


“That’s what we call the troopers who returned 
from the expedition to Egypt, in which I took part. 
Not only are we all brothers in heart, but Vergniaud 
was in my regiment ; he and I shared the water of the 
desert. Besides, I want to finish teaching those little 
monkeys to read.” 

“ He might give you a better room for your money,” 
said the lawyer. 

“ Bah ! ” said the colonel, “ the children sleep as I 
do on straw. He and his wife have no better bed 
themselves. They are very poor, you see ; they have 
more of an establishment here than they can manage. 
But if I get back my fortune — Well, enough ! ” 

“ Colonel, I expect to receive your papers from 
Heilsberg to-morrow ; your benefactress is still living.” 

“ Oh ! cursed money ! to think I have n’t any ! ” 
cried the colonel, fiinging down his pipe. 

A “colored” pipe is a precious pipe to a smoker; 
but the action was so natural and so generous that 
all smokers would have forgiven him that act of leze- 
tobacco ; the angels might have picked up the pieces. 

“ Colonel, your affair is very complicated,” said 
Derville, leaving the room to walk up and down in 
the sun before the house. 

“ It seems to me,” said the soldier, “ perfectly sim- 
ple. They thought me dead, and here I am ! Give 
me back my wife and my property ; give me the rank 


140 


Colonel Chahert. 


of general, — to which I have a right, for I had passed 
colonel in the Imperial Guard the night before the battle 
of Eylaii.'*’ 

“Matters are not managed that wa}" in law,” said 
Derville. Listen to me. You are Comte Chabert, — 
I ’ll admit that ; but the thing is to prove it legall}" 
against those persons whose interest it is to deny 
your existence. All your papers and documents will 
be disputed ; and the very first discussions will open a 
dozen or more preliminary questions. Ever}" step will 
be fought over up to the supreme court. All that will 
involve expensive suits, which will drag along, no matter 
how much energy I put into them. Your adversaries 
will demand an inquiry, which we cannot refuse, and 
which will perhaps necessitate sending a commission 
to Prussia. But suppose all went well, and you were 
promptly and legally recognized as Colonel Chabert, 
what then? Do we know how the question of Ma- 
dame Ferraud’s innocent bigamy would be decided ? 
Here ’s a case where the question of rights is outside 
of the Code, and can be decided by the judges only 
under the laws of conscience, as a jury does in many 
delicate cases which social perversities bring up in 
criminal courts. Now, here’s a point: you had no 
children by your marriage, and Monsieur Ferraud has 
two ; the judges may annul the marriage where the ties 
are weakest, in favor of a marriage which involves the 


Colonel Chahert. 


141 


well-being of children, admitting that the parents mar- 
ried in good faith. Would it be a fine or moral posi- 
tion for you, at your age, and under these circumstances, 
to insist on having — will ye, nill 3’e — a wife who no 
longer loves you? You would have against you a hus- 
band and wife who are powerful and able to bring in- 
fluence upon the judges. The case has many elements 
of duration in it. You ma^^ spend jears and grow an 
old man still struggling with the sharpest grief and 
anxiet3^” 

“ But m3^ property? ” 

“ You think you have a large fortune?’^ 

“ I had an income of thirt3' thousand francs.” 

“ M3' dear colonel, in 1799, before 3’our marriage, 
3'ou made a will leaving a quarter of 3’our whole prop- 
ert3' to the hospitals.” 

“ That is true.” 

“ Well, 3'ou were supposed to be dead ; then of 
course an inventoiy of 3'our property was made and 
the whole wound up in order to give that fourth part 
to the said hospitals. Your wife had no scruples about 
cheating the poor. The inventor3', in which she took 
care not to mention the cash on hand or her jeweliy, 
or the full amount of the silver, and in which the fur- 
niture was appraised at two-thirds below its real value 
(either to please her or to lessen the treasuiy tax, for ap- 
praisers are liable for the amount of their valuations) , — 


142 


Colonel Chabert, 


this inventory, I say, gave your property as amounting 
to six hundred thousand francs. Your widow had a 
legal right to half. Everything was sold and bought 
in by her; she gained on the whole transaction, and 
the hospitals got their seventy- five thousand francs. 
Then, as the Treasury inherited the rest of 3’our prop- 
erty" (for you had not mentioned y-our wife in your 
will), the Emperor made a decree returning the portion 
which reverted to the Treasury" to your widow. Now, 
then, the question is, to what have you any legal right ? 
— to three hundred thousand francs only^, less costs.” 

“You call that justice?” said the colonel, thunder- 
struck. 

“ Of course.” 

“ Fine justice ! ” 

“It is always so, my poor colonel. You see now 
that what you thought so easy is not easy" at all. Ma- 
dame Ferraud may also try to keep the portion the 
Emperor returned to her.” 

“ But she was not a widow, and therefore the decree 
was null.” 

“ I admit that. But everything can be argued. Lis- 
ten to me. Under these circumstances, I think a com- 
promise is the best thing both for you and for her. 
You could get a larger sum that way than by assert- 
ing your rights.” 

“ It would be selling my" wife ! ” 


Colonel Chahert, 


143 


“ With an income of twentj’-four thousand francs 
you would be in a position to find another who would 
suit 3"ou better and make you happier. I intend to go 
and see the Comtesse Ferraud to-daj^, and find out how 
the land lies ; but I did not wish to take that step with- 
out letting you know.” 

“We will go together.” 

“ Dressed as you are? ” said the law3’er. “ No, no, 
colonel, no ! You might lose your case.” 

“ Can I win it? ” 

“ Yes, under all aspects,” answered Derville. “ But 
my dear Colonel Chabert, there is one thing 3’OU pay 
no heed to. I am not rich, and my practice is not 
3’et wholly paid for. If the courts should be willing 
to grant 3'OU a provisional maintenance the}^ will only 
do so after recognizing your claims as Colonel Chabert, 
grand officer of the Legion of honor.” 

“ So I am ! ” said the old man, naively, " grand officer 
of the Legion of honor, — I had forgotten that.” 

“Well, as I was saving,” resumed Derville, “till 
then 3'ou will have to bring suits, pay lawyers, serve 
writs, employ sheriffs, and live. The cost of those 
preliminary steps will amount to more than twelve or 
even fifteen thousand francs. I can’t lend 3"Ou the 
money for I am crushed by the enormous interest I 
am forced to pa}" to those who lent me money to buy 
m}’ practice. Where, then, can you get it? ” 


144 


Colonel Chahert. 


Big tears fell from the faded ej’es of the old soldier 
and rolled down his cheeks. The sight of these difficul- 
ties discouraged him. The social and judicial world 
lay upon his breast like a nightmare. 

“ I will go to the column of the place Vendome,” he 
said, “ and crj^ aloud, ‘ I am Colonel Chabert, who broke 
the Russian square at Ejdau ! ’ The man of iron up 
there — ah ! he ’ll recognize me ! ” 

“ They would put 3’ou in Charenton.” 

At that dreaded name the soldier’s courage fell. 

“ Perhaps I should have a better chance at the 
ministry of war,” he said. 

“ In a government office? Well, tiy it,” said Der- * 
ville. ‘‘ But 3'ou must take with 3’ou a legal judgment 
declaring 3’our death disproved. The government 
would prefer to get rid of the Empire peojde.” 

The colonel remained for a moment speechless, mo- 
tionless, gazing before him and seeing nothing, plunged 
in a bottomless despair. Militaiy justice is prompt 
and straight-forward ; it decides peremptoril3’, and is 
generall3’ fair; this was the onl3’ justice Chabert knew. 
Seeing the labyrinth of difficult3’ which la3’ before him^ 
and knowing that he had no mone3' with which to enter 
it, the poor soldier was mortall3’^ wounded in that par- 
ticular power of human nature which we call will. He 
felt it was impossible for him to live in a legal struggle ; 
far easier to his nature was it to sta3^ poor and a beg- 


Colonel ChaherU 145 

gar, or to enlist in some cavalry regiment if the}" would 
still take him. Ph3'sical and mental suffering had vitiated 
his body in some of its important organs. He was 
approaching one of those diseases for which the science 
of medicine has no name, the seat of which is, in a way, 
movable (like the nervous system which is the part of 
our machinery" most frequently attacked), an affection 
which we must fain call “ the spleen of sorrow.” 
However serious this invisible but most real disease 
might be, it was still curable by a happy termination 
of his griefs. To completely unhinge and destroy that 
vigorous organization some final blow was needed, 
some unexpected shock which might break the weak- 
ened springs and produce those strange hesitations, 
those vague, incomplete, and inconsequent actions which 
physiologists notice in all persons wrecked b}’ grief. 

Observing symptoms of deep depression in his client, 
Derville hastened to say: “Take courage; the issue 
of the affair must be favorable to you in some way or 
other. Only, examine 3*our own mind and see if j'ou 
can place implicit trust in me, and accept blindly the 
course that I shall think best for 3'ou.” 

“ Do what 3"ou will,” said Chabert. 

“ Yes, but will you surrender 3"Ourself to me com- 
pletel}', like a man marching to his death ? ” 

“ Am I to live without a status and without a name? 
Is that bearable ? ” 

10 


146 


Colonel Chahert 


“ I don’t mean that,” said the lawyer. “We will 
bring an amicable suit to annul the record of 3’our 
decease, and also your marriage ; then 3’ou will resume 
3^our rights. You could even be, through Comte 
Ferraud’s influence, restored to the arm}' with the 
rank of general, and j’ou would certainly obtain a 
pension.” 

“Well, go on, then,” replied Chabert; “I trust 
implicitl}' to 3'ou.” 

“ I will send 3’ou a power-of- attorney to sign,” said 
Derville. “ Adieu, keep up 3'our courage ; if you want 
mone}' let me know.” 

Chabert wrung the lawyer’s hand, and stood with his 
back against the wall, unable to follow him except with 
his e3’es. During this conference the face of a man had 
ever}' now and then looked round one of the gate pil- 
lars, behind which its owner was posted waiting for 
Derville’s departure. The man now accosted the 3'oung 
law3’er. He was old, and he wore a blue jacket, a 
pleated white smock like those worn b}' brewers, and 
on his head a cap of otter fur. His face was brown, 
hollow, and wrinkled, but red at the cheek-bones from 
hard work and exposure to the weather. 

Excuse me, monsieur, if I take the libert}' of 
speaking to 3'ou,” he said, touching Derville on the 
arm. ‘ ‘ But I supposed when I saw you that you 
were the general’s friend.” 


Colonel Chahert, 


147 


“Well,” said Derville, “ what interest have you iu 
him? Who are you? ” added the distrustful lawyer. 

“ I am Louis Vergniaud,” answered the man, “ and 
I want to have a word with you.” 

“ Then it is you who lodge the Comte Chabert in this 
wa3% is it ? ” 

“ Pardon it, monsieur. He has the best room in the 
house. I would have given him mine if I had had one, 
and slept m^^self in the stable. A man who has suffered 
as he has and who is teaching my kids to read, a gen- 
eral, an Egyptian, the first lieutenant under whom I 
served, — why, all I have is his! I’ve shared all 
with him. Unluckily it is so little, — bread and milk 
and eggs I However, when 3’ou ’re on a campaign you 
must live with the mess ; and little as it is, it is 
given with a full heart, monsieur. But he has vexed 
us.” 

“He!” 

“Yes, monsieur, vexed us ; there ’s no going behind 
that. I took this establishment, which is more than I 
can manage, and he saw that. It troubled him, and he 
would do my work and take care of the horse ! I kept 
saying to him, ‘No, no, my general!’ But there! he 
only answered, ‘ Am I a laz3’bones? don’t I know how 
to put m3’ shoulder to the wheel ? ’ So I gave notes for 
the value of my cow-house to a man named Grados. 
Do you know him, monsieur? ” 


145 


Colonel ChaherU 


“ But, my good friend, I have n’t the time to listen 
to all this. Tell me only how Colonel Chabert vexed 
you.” 

“ He did vex us, monsieur, just as true as my name 
is Louis Vergniaud, and my wife cried about it. He 
heard from the neighbors that I couldn’t meet that 
note ; and the old fellow, without a word to us, took 
all you gave him, and, little by little, paid the note ! 
W asn’t it a trick ! My wife and I knew he went with- 
out tobacco all that time, poor old man ! But now, 
3"es, he has the cigars, — I ’d sell my own self sooner ! 
But it does vex us. Now, I propose to you to lend me 
on this establishment three hundred francs, so that we 
may get him some clothes and furnish his room. He 
thinks he has paid us, does n’t he? Well, the truth is, 
he hals made us his debtors. Yes, he has vexed us ; 
he shouldn’t have played us such a trick, — wasn’t it 
almost an insult? Such friends as we are! As true 
as my name is Louis Vergniaud, I will mortgage myself 
rather than not return you that mone}*.” 

Derville looked at the cow-keeper, then he made a 
step backward and looked at the house, the yard, the 
the manure, the stable, the rabbits, and the children. 

“ Faith ! ” thought he to himself, “I do believe one of 
the characteristics of virtue is to own nothing. Yes,” 
he said aloud, “ you shall have your three hundred 
francs, and more too. But it is not I who give them 


Colonel Chahert, 


149 


-to 3’ou, it is the colonel ; he will be rich enough to help 
3’ou, and I shall not deprive him of that pleasure.” 

“ Will it be soon? ” 

“ Yes, soon.” 

“ Good God ! how happy my wife will be.” The 
tanned face of the cow-keeper brightened into joy. 

“ Now,” thought Derville as he jumped into his 
cabriolet, “to face the enemy. She must not see our 
game, but we must know hers, and win it at one trick. 
She is a woman. What are women most afraid of ? 
Why, of — ” 

He began to study the countess’s position, and fell 
into one of those deep reveries to which great poli- 
ticians are prone when the^" prepare their plans and try 
to guess the secrets of foreign powers. Lawj’ers are, 
in a way, statesmen, to whom the management of indi- 
vidual interests is intrusted. A glance at the situ- 
ation of Monsieur le Comte Ferraud and his wife is 
necessary for a full comprehension of the law^’er’s 
genius. 

Monsieur le Comte Ferraud was the son of a former 
councillor of the parliament of Paris, who had emigrated 
during the Terror, and who, though he saved his head, 
lost his property. He returned to France under the 
Consulate, and remained faithful to the interests of 
Louis XVIII., in whose suite his father had been before 
the Revolution. His son, therefore, belonged to that 


150 


Colonel Chahert, 


section of the faubourg Saint-Germain which nobly re- 
sisted the Napoleonic seductions. The young count’s 
reputation for good sense and sagacity when he was 
called sirnpl}^ “ Monsieur Ferraud ” made him the object 
of a few imperial blandishments ; for the Emperor took 
as much satisfaction in his conquests over the aris- 
tocracy as he did in winning a battle. The count was 
promised the restitution of his title, also that of all 
his property which was not sold, and hopes were held 
out of a ministry in the future, and a senatorship. The 
Emperor failed. At the time of Comte Chabert’s death 
Monsieur Ferraud was a young man twentj -six j ears 
of age, without fortune, agreeable in appearance and 
manner, and a social success, whom the faubourg Saint- 
Germain adopted as one of its distinguished figures. 

Madame la Comtesse Chabert had managed the 
property derived from her late husband so well that 
after a widowhood of eighteen months she possessed 
an income of nearly forty thousand francs a year. 
Her marriage with the 3’oung count was not regarded 
as news b}" the coteries of the faubourg. Napoleon, 
who was pleased with an alliance which met his ideas 
of fusion, returned to Madame Chabert the mone}" 
derived b}" the Treasury from her late husband’s estate ; 
but here again Napoleon’s hopes were foiled. Madame 
Ferraud not only adored a lover in the 3’oung man, but 
she was attracted by the idea of entering that haughty 


Colonel ChaherL 


151 


society which, in spite of its political abasement, was 
still far above that of the imperial court. Her various * 
vanities as well as her passions were gratified b}’' this 
marriage. She felt she was about to become “ an 
elegant woman.” 

When the faubourg Saint-Germain ascertained that 
the 3’oung count’s marriage was not a defection from 
their ranks, all salons were opened to his wife. The 
Restoration took place. The political fortunes of the 
Comte Ferraud made no rapid strides. He understood 
veiy well the exigencies of Louis XVIII.’s position ; 
he was one of the initiated who waited until ‘ ‘ the 
revolutionaiy gulf was closed,” — a ro^^al phrase which 
the liberals laughed at, but which, nevertheless, hid a 
deep political meaning. However, the ordinance with 
its long-winded clerical phrases quoted ly Godeschal 
in the first pages of this stor^^ restored to the Comte 
Ferraud two forests and an estate which had risen in 
value during its sequestration. At the period of which 
we write Comte Ferraud was councillor of State, also 
a director-general, and he considered his position as no 
more than the opening of his political career. Ab- 
sorbed in the pursuit of an eager ambition, he depended 
much on his secretary, a ruined lawj'er named Delbecq, 
— a man who was more than able, one who knew every 
possible resource of pettifogging sophistiy, to whom 
the count left the management of all his private affairs. 


152 


Colonel Chahert. 


This clever practitioner understood his position in the 
count’s household far too well not to be honest out of 
policy. He hoped for some place under government 
through the influence of his patron, whose property he 
took care of to the best of his ability. His conduct so 
completely refuted the dark stoiy of his earlier life 
that he was now thought to be a calumniated man. 

The countess, however, with the shrewd tact of a 
woman, fathomed the secretaiy, watched him carefulty, 
and knew so well how to manage him, that she had 
alread}' largety increased her fortune by his help. She 
contrived to convince Delbecq that she ruled Monsieur 
Ferraud, and promised that she would get him made 
judge of a municipal court in one of the most impor- 
tant cities in France if he devoted himself wholty to 
her interests. The promise of an irremovable office, 
which would enable him to marr}’ advantageous!}’ and 
improve his political career until he became in the end 
a deputy, made Delbecq Madame Ferraud’s abject tool. 
His watchfulness enabled her to profit b}’ all those 
lucky chances which the fluctuations of the Bourse 
and the rise of property in Paris during the first three 
years of the Restoration offered to clev^er manipula- 
tors of money. Delbecq had tripled her capital with all 
the more ease because his plans commended them- 
selves to the countess as a rapid method of making 
her fortune enormous. She spent the emoluments of 


Colonel Chahert, 


153 


the count’s various offices on the household expenses, 
so as to invest every penny of her own income, and 
Delbecq aided and abetted this avarice without inquir- 
ing into its motives. Men of his kind care nothing 
for the discovery of any secrets that do not affect their 
own interests. Besides, he accounted for it naturally bj' 
that thirst for gold which possesses nearl}’ all Parisian 
women ; and as he knew how large a fortune Comte Fer- 
raud’s ambitions needed to support them, he sometimes 
fancied that he saw in the countess’s greed a sign of 
her devotion to a man with whom she was still in love. 

Madame Ferraud buried the motives of her conduct 
in the depths of her own heart. There lay the secrets 
of life and death to her ; there is the kernel of our 
present history. 

At the beginning of the year 1818 the Restoration 
was established on an apparentl}’ firm and immovable 
basis ; its governmental doctrines, as understood by 
superior minds, seemed likelj’ to lead France into an 
era of renewed prosperity. Then it was that society 
changed front. Madame la Comtesse Ferraud found 
that she had made a marriage of love and wealth and 
ambition. Still young and beautiful, she pla^’ed the 
part of a woman of fashion and lived in the court at- 
mosphere. Rich herself, and rich through her husband, 
who had the credit of being one of the ablest inen of 
the royalist party, a friend of the king and likely to 


154 


Colonel Chahert, 


become a minister, she belonged to the aristocracy and 
shared its glamour. 

In the midst of this triumphant prosperity a moral 
cancer fastened upon her. Men have feelings which 
women guess in spite of every effort made by such men 
to bury them. At the time of the king’s first return 
Comte Ferraud was conscious of some regrets for his 
marriage. The widow of Colonel Chabert had brought 
him no useful connections ; he was alone and without 
influence, to make his way in a career full of obstacles 
and full of enemies. Then, perhaps, after he had coolly 
judged his wife, he saw certain defects of education 
which made her unsuitable, and unable, to further his 
projects. A word he once said about Talle3Tand’s mar- 
riage enlightened the countess and showed her that if 
the past had to be done over again he would never 
make her his wife. What woman would forgive that 
regret, containing as it did, the germs of all insults, 
na}- , of all crimes and all repudiations ! 

Let us conceive the wound that this discoveiy made 
in the heart of a woman who feared the return of her 
first husband. She knew that he lived ; she had re- 
pulsed him. Then, for a short time, she heard no more 
of him, and took comfort in the hope that he was killed 
at Waterloo together with the imperial eagles and Bou- 
tin. She then conceived the idea of binding her second 
husband to her by the strongest of ties, b}’ a chain of 


Colonel Chahert, 


155 


gold ; and she determined to be so rich that her great 
fortune should make that second marriage indissoluble 
if by chance Comte Chabert reappeared. He had reap- 
peared ; and she was unable to understand why the 
struggle she so much dreaded was not begun. Per- 
haps the man’s sufferings, perhaps an illness had de- 
livered her from him. Perhaps he was half-crazy and 
Charenton might restore his reason. She was not wil- 
ling to set Delbecq or the police on his traces, for fear 
of putting herself in their power, or bringing on a ca- 
tastrophe. There are many women in Paris who, like 
the Comtesse Ferraud, are living secretly with moral 
monsters, or skirting the edges of some abyss ; they 
make for themselves a callus over the region of their 
wound and still continue to laugh and be amused. 

“ There is something very singular in Comte Fer- 
raud’s situation,” said Derville to himself, after long 
meditation, as the cabriolet stopped before the gate of 
the hotel Ferraud in the rue de Varennes. “ How is it 
that he, so wealthy and a favorite of the king, is not al- 
ready a peer of France ? Perhaps Madame de Grandlieu 
is right in saying that the king’s policy is to give higher 
importance to the peerage by not lavishing it. Besides, 
the son of a councillor of the old parliament is neither 
a Crillon nor a Rohan. Comte Ferraud can enter the 
upper Chamber only, as it were, on sufferance. But if 
his marriage were ruptured would n’t it be a satisfac- 


156 


Colonel ChaberL 


tion to the king if the peerage of some of those old 
senators who have daughters only could descend to 
him? Certainly that's a pretty good fear to dangle 
before the countess,” thought Derville, as he went up 
the steps of the hdtel Ferraud. 

Without knowing it the lawyer had laid his finger on 
the secret wound, he had plunged his hand into the can- 
cer that was destroying Madame Ferraud’s life. She 
received him in a prett}’ winter dining-room, where she 
was breakfasting and playing with a monkey, which was 
fastened by a chain to a sort of little post with iron 
bars. The countess was wrapped in an elegant morn- 
ing-gown ; the curls of her pretty hair, careless!}" caught 
up, escaped from a little cap which gave her a piquant 
air. She was fresh and smiling. The table glittered 
with the silver-gilt service, the plate, the mother-of- 
pearl articles ; rare plants were about her, growing in 
splendid porcelain vases. 

As the lawyer looked at Comte Chabert's wife, rich 
with his property, surrounded by luxury, and she her- 
self at the apex of society, while the unhappy husband 
lived with the beasts in a cow-house, lie said to him- 
self : “ The moral of this is that a pretty woman will 
never acknowledge a husband, nor even a lover, in a 
man with an old topcoat, a shabby wig, and broken 
boots.” A bitter and satirical smile expressed the 
half-philosophic, half-sarcastic ideas that necessarily 


Colonel ChaherL 


157 


come to a man who is so placed that he sees to tlie 
bottom of things in spite of the lies under which so many 
Parisian families hide their existence. 

“ Good morning, Monsieur Derville,” said the count- 
ess, continuing to make the monkey drink coffee. 

“ Madame,’’ he said, abruptl}’, for he was offended at 
the careless tone in which the countess greeted him. 
“I have come to talk to you on a serious matter.” 

“Oh! I am so very sorry, but the count is ab- 
sent — ” 

“ I am glad, madame ; for he would be out of place 
at this conference. Besides, I know from Delbecq that 
3’ou prefer to do business yourself, without troubling 
Monsieur le comte.” 

“Very good; then I will send for Delbecq,” she 
said. 

“ He could do you no good, clever as he is,” re- 
turned Derville. “Listen to me, madame; one word 
will suffice to make you serious. Comte Chabert is 
living.” 

“ Do you expect me to be serious when you talk 
such nonsense as that?” she said, bursting into a fit 
of laughter. 

But the countess was suddenly subdued by the 
strange lucidity of the fixed look with which Derville 
questioned her, seeming to read into the depths of her 
soul. 


158 


Colonel ChaherL 


“ Madame,” he replied, with cold and incisive gravity, 
“ you are not aware of the dangers of your position. 
I do not speak of the undeniable authenticity of the 
papers in the case, nor of the positive proof that can 
be brought of Comte Chabert’s existence. I am not 
a man, as you know, to take charge of a hopeless 
case. If you oppose our steps to prove the falsity 
of the death-record, j-ou will certainly lose that first 
suit, and that question once settled in our favor de- 
termines all the others.” 

“ Then, what do j’ou wish to speak of?” 

“Not of the colonel, nor of you ; neither shall I re- 
mind 3’ou of the costs a clever lawyer in possession 
of all the facts of the case might charge upon 3'ou, 
nor of the game such a man could play with those 
letters which you received from 3’our first husband 
before 3’ou married your second — ” 

“It is false!” she cried, with the violence of a 
spoilt beauty. “ I have never received a letter from 
Comte Chabert. If any one calls himself the colonel 
he is a swindler, a gallej^-slave perhaps, like Cogniard ; 
it makes me shudder to think of it. How can the colo- 
nel come to life again? Bonaparte himself sent me 
condolences on his death by an aid-de-camp ; and I 
now draw a pension of three thousand francs granted 
to his widow b^" the Chambers. I have ever}^ right to 
reject all Chaberts past, present, and to come.” 


Colonel Chabert. 


159 


“ Happily we are alone, madaine, and we can lie at 
our ease,” he said, coldl}', inwardly amused by inciting 
the anger which shook the countess, for the purpose 
of forcing her into some betrayal, — a trick familiar to 
all law3'ers, who remain calm and impassible themselves 
when their clients or their adversaries get angry. 

“Now then, to measure swords!” he said to him- 
self, thinking of a trap he could lay to force her to 
show her weakness. “ The proof that Colonel Chabert’s 
first letter reached 3*ou exists, madame,” he said aloud. 
“ It contained a draft.” 

“ No, it did not ; there was no draft,” she said. 

“ Then the letter did reach 3"ou,” continued Derville, 
smiling. “You are caught in the first trap a lawj'er 
la3’S for 3"ou, and yet 3’ou think you can fight the 
law ! ” 

The countess blushed, turned pale, and hid her face 
in her hands. Then she shook off her shame, and said, 
with the coolness which belongs to women of her class, 
“ As you are the lawyer of the impostor Chabert, have 
the goodness to — ” 

“Madame,” said Derville, interrupting her, “I am 
at this moment 3’our law3'er as well as the colonel’s. 
Do you think I wish to lose a client as valuable to me 
as you are ? But 3’ou are not listening to me.” 

“ Go on, monsieur,” she said, graciousl3^ 

“ Your fortune came from Monsieur le Comte Cha- 


160 


Colonel Chahert, 


bert, and you have repudiated him. Your property is 
colossal, and you let him starve. Madame, law3’ers 
can be very eloquent when their cases are eloquent ; 
here are circumstances which can raise the hue-and-cr^' 
of public opinion against 3"ou.” 

“ But, Monsieur,” said the countess, irritated by the 
manner in which Derville turned and returned her on 
his gridiron, “ admitting that j^our Monsieur Chabert 
exists, the courts will sustain my second marriage on 
account of m^^ children, and I shall get off b^" repa3’ing 
two hundred and fifty thousand francs to Monsieur 
Chabert.” 

“ Madame, there is no telling how a court of law 
may view a matter of feeling. If, on the one hand, 
we have a mother and two children, on the other there 
is a man overwhelmed b3^ undeserved misfortune, aged 
b3^ 3’ou, left to starve by 3^our rejection. Besides, the 
judges cannot go against the law. Your marriage with 
the colonel puts the law on his side ; he has the prior 
right. But, if you appear in such an odious light 3^ou 
ma3^ find an adversaiy 3^ou little expect. That, ma- 
dame, is the danger I came to warn 3"ou of.” 

“ Another adversar3" ! ” she said, “ who? ” 

“ Monsieur le Comte Ferraud, madame.” 

“Monsieur Ferraud is too deeply attached to me, 
and respects the mother of his children too — ” 

“Ah, madame,” said Derville, interrupting her, <‘why 


Colonel ChaberL 


161 


talk such nonsense to a lawj’er who can read hearts. 
At the present moment Monsieur Ferraud has not the 
slightest desire to annul his marriage, and I have no 
doubt he adores you. But if some one went to him 
and told him that his marriage could be annulled, that 
his wife would be arraigned before the bar of public 
opinion — ” 

“ He would defend me, monsieur.” 

“ No, madame.” 

“ What reason would he have for deserting me? ” 

“ That of marrying the only daughter of some peer 
of France, whose title would descend to him by the 
king’s decree.” 

The countess turned pale. 

“ I have her ! ” thought Derville. “ Good, the poor 
colonel’s cause is won. Moreover, madame,” he said 
aloud, “ Monsieur Ferraud will feel the less regret be- 
cause a man covered with glory, a general, a count, 
a grand oflScer of the Legion of honor, is certainly 
not a derogation to you, — if such a man asks for his 
wife — ” 

“ Enough, enough, monsieur,” she cried ; “ I can have 
no lawyer but you. What must I do? ” 

“ Compromise.” 

“ Does he still love me? ” 

“ How could it be otherwise ? ” 

At these words the countess threw up her head. A 
11 


162 


Colonel Chabert. 


gleam of hope shone in her eyes ; perhaps she thought 
of speculating on her husband’s tenderness and winning 
her way some female wile. 

“ I shall await your orders, madame ; you will let 
me know whether we are to serve notices of Comte 
Chabert’s suit upon you, or whether 3’ou will come to 
my office and arrange the basis of a compromise,” said 
Derville, bowing as he left the room. 

. Eight days after these visits paid by Derville, on a 
fine June morning, the husband and wife, parted l\y an 
almost supernatural circumstance, were making their 
way from the opposite extremes of Paris, to meet again 
in the office of their mutual lawyer. Certain liberal 
advances made bj^ Derville to the colonel enabled the 
latter to clothe himself in accordance with his rank. 
He came in a clean cab. His head was covered with 
a suitable wig ; he was dressed in dark-blue cloth and 
spotlessl3’ white linen, and he wore beneath his waist- 
coat the broad red ribbon of the grand officers of the 
Legion of honor. In resuming the dress and the 
habits of affluence he had also recovered his former 
martial elegance. He walked erect. His face, grave 
and mysterious, and bearing the signs of happiness 
and renewed hope, seemed younger and fuller ; he was 
no more like the old Chabert in the top-coat than a two- 
sous piece is lixe a forty-franc coin just issued. All 


Colonel Chabert, 


163 


who passed him knew him at once for a noble relic of 
our old arm}", one of those heroic men on whom the 
light of our national glory shines, who reflect it, as 
shattered glass illuminated by the sun returns a thou- 
sand rays. Such old soldiers are books and pictures 
too. 

The count sprang from the carriage to enter Derville’s 
office with the agility of a young man. The cab had 
hardly turned away before a pretty coupe with armorial 
bearings drove up. Madame la Comtesse Ferraud got 
out of it in a simple dress, but one well suited to dis- 
play her youthful figure. She wore a pretty drawn 
bonnet lined with pink, which framed her face delight- 
fully, concealed its exact outline, and restored its 
freshness. 

Tliough the clients were thus rejuvenated, the office 
remained its old self, such as we saw it when this 
history began. Simonnin was eating his breakfast, 
one shoulder leaning against the window, which was 
now open ; he was gazing at the blue sky above the 
courtyard formed by four blocks of black buildings. 

“ Ha ! ” cried the gutter-jumper, “ who wants to bet 
a play now that Colonel Chabert is a general and a 
red-ribbon ? 

“ Derville is a downright magician,” said Godeschal. 

“There’s no trick to play him this time,” said 
Desroches. 


164 


Colonel Chahert. 


His wife will do that, the Comtesse Ferraud,” said 
Boucard. 

“ Then she ’ll have to belong to two — 

“ Here she is ! ” cried Simonnin. 

Just then the colonel came in and asked for Derville. 

“ He is in, Monsieur le Comte,” said Simonnin. 

“ So you are not deaf, j'ou 3’oung scamp,” said 
Chabert, catching the gutter-jumper b}^ the ear and 
twisting it, to the great satisfaction of the other clerks, 
who laughed and looked at the colonel with the inquisi- 
tive interest due to so singular a personage. 

Colonel Chabert was in Derville’s room when his 
wife entered the office. 

“ Sa}’, Boucard, what a queer scene there ’s going to 
be in the master’s room ! She can live the even da3*s 
with Comte Ferraud, and the uneven da3’s with Comte 
Chabert — ” 

“ Leap-year the colonel will gain,” said Godeschal. 

“ Hold 3"our tongues, gentlemen,” said Boucard, se- 
vereH’. “ You’ll be overheard. I never knew an office 
in which the clerks made such fun of the clients as 3^ou 
do here.” 

Derville had put the colonel into an adjoining room 
b3" the time the countess was ushered in. 

“ Madame,” he said to her, “ not knowing if it would 
be agreeable to 3’ou to meet Monsieur le Comte Chabert, 
I have separated 3’OU. If, however, 3"ou wish — ” 


Colonel Chabert. 


165 


“ I thank you for that consideration, monsieur.” 

“ I have prepared the draught of an agreement, the 
conditions of which can be discussed here and now, be- 
tween you and Monsieur Chabert. I will go from one to 
the other and convey the remarks of each.” 

“Begin, monsieur,” said the countess, showing signs 
of impatience. 

Derville read: “Between the undersigned, — Mon- 
sieur Hyacinthe, called Chabert, count, brigadier-gen- 
eral, and grand officer of the Legion of honor, living 
in Paris, in the rue du Petit-Banquier, of the first part, 
and Madame Rose Chapotel, wife of the above-named 
Monsieur le Comte Chabert, born — ” 

“ That will do,” she said; “skip the preamble and 
come to the conditions.” 

“ Madame,” said the law3'er, “ the preamble explains 
succinctly the position which 3"ou hold to each other. 
Then, in article one, 3’ou recognize in presence of three 
witnesses, namely, two notaries, and the cow-keeper 
with whom 3'our husband lives, to all of whom I have 
confided your secret and who will keep it faithfully, — 
you recognize, I say, that the individual mentioned in 
the accompanying deeds and whose identit3" is else- 
where established by affidavits prepared b3' Alexander 
Crottat, 3’our notary, is the Comte Chabert, your first 
husband. In article two Comte Chabert, for the sake 
of your welfare, agrees to make no use 'of his rights 


166 


Colonel Chahert. 


except under circumstances provided for in the agree- 
ment, — and those circumstances,” remarked Derville in a 
parenthesis, “ are the non-fulfilment of the clauses of 
this private agreement. Monsieur Chabert, on his 
part,” he continued, “ consents to sue with you for a 
judgment which shall set aside the record of his death, 
and also dissolve his marriage. ” 

“ But that wdll not suit me at all,” said the countess, 
astonished ; “ I don’t wish a lawsuit, 3’ou know wh}'.” 

“ In article three,” continued the lawj er, with imper- 
turbable coolness, “ 3*011 agree to secure to the said 
H3’acinthe, Comte Chabert, an annuity of twent3*-four 
thousand francs now invested in the public Funds, the 
capital of which will devolve on 3’ou at his death.” 

“ But that is far too dear ! ” cried the countess. 

“ Can 3'ou compromise for less? ” 

“ Perhaps so.” 

“ What is it you want, madame? ” 

“ I want — I don’t want a suit. I want — ” 

“ To keep him dead,” said Derville, quickly. 

“ Monsieur,” said the countess, “ if he asks twent3’- 
four thousand francs a year, I ’ll demand justice.” 

“Yes, justice ! ” cried a hollow voice, as the colonel 
opened the door and appeared suddenl3^ before his wife, 
with one hand in his waistcoat and the other pointing 
to the floor, a gesture to which the memor3^ great 

disaster gave a horrible meaning. 


Colonel Chahert, 


167 


“ It is he ! ” said the countess in her own mind. 

“Too dear?” continued the old soldier, “I gave 
you a million and now you trade on my poverty. Well, 
then, I will have you and m}^ property both ; our mar- 
riage is not void.” 

“ But monsieur is not Colonel Chabert ! ” cried the 
countess, feigning surprise. 

“ Ah! ” said the old man, in a tone of irony, “ do 
you want proofs? Well, did I not take you from the 
pavements of the Palais-Royal?” 

The countess turned pale. Seeing her color fade be- 
neath her rouge, the old soldier, sorrj- for the suffering he 
was inflicting on a woman he had once loved ardently, 
stopped short ; but she gave him such a venomous look 
that he suddenly added, “ You were with — ” 

“ For heaven’s sake, monsieur,” said the countess, 
appealing to the lawyer, “ allow me to leave this place. 
I did not come here to listen to such insults.” 

She left the room. Derville sprang into the office 
after her; but she seemed to have taken wings and 
was already gone. When he returned to his own 
room he found the colonel walking up and down in 
a paroxysm of rage. 

“ In those da3^s men took their wives where they 
liked,” he said. “But I chose ill; I ought never to 
have trusted her ; she has no heart I ” 

“ Colonel, 3^ou will admit I was right in begging you 


168 


Colonel Chahert, 


not to come here ! I am now certain of your identity. 
When you came in the countess made a little move- 
ment the meaning of which was not to be doubted. 
But you have lost your cause. Your wife now knows 
that you are unrecognizable.” 

“ I will kill her.” 

“Nonsense! then 3’ou would be arrested and guil- 
lotined as a criminal. Besides, you might miss jour 
stroke ; it is unpardonable not to kill a wife when 3’ou 
attempt it. Leave me to undo 3"Our folly, you big 
child ! Go away ; but take care of yourself, for she 
is capable of laying some trap and getting j^ou locked 
up at Charenton. I will see about serving the notices 
of the suit on her at once ; that will be some protection 
to 3’Ou.” 

The poor colonel obeyed his 3'oung benefactor, and 
went away, stammering a few excuses. He was going 
slowly down the dark staircase lost in gloomy thought, 
overcome perhaps b3" the blow he had just received, to 
him the worst, the one that went deepest to his heart, 
when, as he reached the lower landing, he heard the 
rustle of a gown, and his wife appeared. 

“Come, monsieur,” she said, taking his arm with a 
movement like others he once knew so well. 

The action, the tones of her voice, now soft and 
gentle, calmed the colonel’s anger, and he allowed her 
to lead him to her carriage. 


Colonel Chabert. 


169 


“ Get in/’ she said, when the footman had let down 
the steps. 

And he suddenly found himself, as if by magic, 
seated beside his wife in the coupe. 

“ Where to, madame?” asked the footman. 

“ To Groslay,” she replied. 

The horses started, and the carriage crossed the 
whole cit3% 

“Monsieur!” said the countess, in a tone of voice 
that seemed to betray one of those rare emotions, few 
in life, which shake our whole being. 

At such moments heart, fibres, nerves, soul, bodv", 
countenance, all, even the pores of the skin, quiver. 
Life seems no longer in us ; it gushes out, it conve3's 
itself like a contagion, it transmits itself in a look, in 
a tone of the voice, in a gesture, in the imposition of 
our will on others. The old soldier trembled, hearing 
that word, that first, that expressive “Monsieur!” 
It was at once a reproach, a prayer, a pardon, a hope, 
a despair, a question, an answer. That one word in- 
cluded all. A woman must needs be a great comedian 
to throw such eloquence and so many feelings into one 
word. Truth is never so complete in its expression ; it 
cannot utter itself wholl}^ — it leaves something to be 
seen within. The colonel was filled with remorse for 
his suspicions, his exactions, his anger, and he lowered 
his eyes to conceal his feelings. 


170 


Colonel Ohahert. 


“ Monsieur,” continued the countess, after an almost 
imperceptible pause, “ I knew 3'ou at once.” 

“ Rosine,” said the old soldier, “ that word contains 
the onl}’ balm that can make me forget my troubles.” 

Two great tears fell hotl^’ on his wife’s hands, wliich 
he pressed as if to show her a paternal affection. 

“ Monsieur,” she continued, “ how is it you did not 
see what it cost me to appear before a stranger in a 
position so false as mine. If I am forced to blush for 
what I am, at least let it be in my own home. Ought 
not such a secret to remain buried in our own hearts? 
You will, I hope, forgive my apparent indifference to 
the misfortunes of a Chabert in whom I had no rea- 
son to believe. I did receive 3'our letters,” she said, 
hastily", seeing a sudden objection on her husband’s 
face ; “ but they reached me thirteen months after the 
battle of Eylau ; the}^ were open, torn, dirt}’ ; the writ- 
ing was unknown to me ; and I, who had just obtained 
Napoleon’s signature to my new marriage contract, sup- 
posed that some clever swindler was trying to impose 
upon me. Not wishing to trouble Monsieur Ferraud’s 
peace of mind, or to bring future trouble into the famil}*, 
I was right, was I not, to take ever}’ precaution against 
a false Chabert ? ” 

“Yes, you were right; and I have been a fool, a 
dolt, a beast, not to have foreseen the consequences of 
such a situation. But where are we going ? ” asked the 


Colonel Chahert. 


171 


colonel, suddenly noticing that they had reached the 
Barriere de la Chapelle. 

“To my country-place near Grosla}^, in the valley 
of Montmorency,” she replied. “ There, monsieur, we 
can think over, together, the course we ought to take. 
I know m}^ duty. Though I am yours legally, I am no 
longer yours in fact. Surel}", you cannot wish that we 
should be the common talk of Paris. Let^is hide from 
the public a situation which, for me, has a mortifying 
side, and strive to maintain our dignit}". You love me 
still,” she continued, casting a sad and gentle look 
upon the colonel, “ but I, was I not authorized to 
form other ties? In this strange position a secret 
voice tells me to hope in 3’our goodness, which I know 
so well. Am I wrong in taking you, you only’, for the 
sole arbiter of my fate? Be judge and pleader both ; I 
confide in j’our noble nature. You will forgive the 
consequences of m3’ innocent fault. I dare avow to 
you, therefore, that I love Monsieur Ferraud ; I thought 
I had the right to love him. I do not blush for this 
confession ; it may offend you, but it dishonors neither 
of us. I cannot hide the truth from 3’ou. When acci- 
dent made me a widow, I was not a mother — 

The colonel made a sign with his hand as if to ask 
silence of his wife ; and they remained silent, not sa3’- 
ing a word for over a mile. Chabert fancied he saw 
her little children before him. 


172 


Colonel CliaherL 


“ Rosine ! ” 

“ Monsieur?” 

“ The dead do wrong to reappear.” 

“Oh, monsieur, no, no! Do not think me ungrate- 
ful. But you find a mother, a woman w^ho loves an- 
other man, where you left a wife. If it is no longer in 
my power to love you, I know what I owe to 3’ou, and 
I offer 3^011 still the devotion of a daughter.” 

“Rosine,” said the old man, gentl3", “I feel no re- 
sentment towards 3^ou. We will forget all that once 
was,” he said, with one of those smiles whose charm is 
the reflection of a noble soul. “ I am not so lost to 
delicacy as to ask a show of love from a woman who no 
longer loves me.” 

The countess gave him such a grateful glance that 
poor Chabert wished in his heart he could return to 
that gra\^e at E3'lau. Certain men have souls capable 
of vast sacrifices, whose recompense to them is the cer- 
taint3’' of the happiness of one the3’^ love. 

“ M3^ friend, we will talk of all this later, with a 
quiet mind,” said the countess. 

The conversation took another turn, for it was im- 
possible to continue it long in this strain. Though 
husband and wife constantly touched upon their strange 
position, either b3^ vague allusions, or grave remarks, 
they nevertheless made a charming journey, recalling 
man3' of the events of their union, and of the Empire. 


Colonel Chabert, 


173 


The countess knew how to impart a tender charm to 
these memories, and to cast a tinge of melancholy upon 
the conversation, enough at least to keep it serious. 
She revived love without exciting desire, and showed 
her first husband the mental graces and knowledge she 
had acquired, — trying to let him taste the happiness 
of a father beside a cherished daughter. The colonel 
had known the countess of the Empire, he now saw a 
countess of the Restoration. 

They at last arrived, through a cross-road, at a fine 
park in the little valley which separates the heights of 
Margency from the pretty village of Groslay. The 
house was a delightful one, and the colonel saw on 
arriving that all was prepared for their sta\\ Misfor- 
tune is a sort of talisman, the power of which lies in 
strengthening and fulfilling our natural man ; it in- 
creases the distrust and evil tendencies of certain 
natures just as it increases the goodness of those whose 
heart is sound. Misfortune had made the colonel more 
helpful and better than he had ever been ; he was there- 
fore able to enter into those secrets of woman’s suffer- 
ing which are usuallj^ unknown to men. And yet, in 
spite of his great lack of distrust, he could not help 
saying to his wife : — 

“ You seem to have been sure of bringing me here?” 

“Yes,” she answered, “if I found Colonel Chabert 
in the petitioner.” 


174 


Colonel Chabert. 


The tone of truth which she gave to that answer 
dispersed the few doubts which the colonel already felt 
ashamed of admitting. 

For three days the countess was truly admirable in 
her conduct to her first husband. By tender care and 
constant gentleness she seemed to try to efface even 
the memor}^ of the sufferings he had endured, and to 
win pardon for the misfortunes she had, as she ad- 
mitted, innocently caused. She took pleasure in dis- 
playing for his benefit, though alwa3’s with a sort of 
melancholy, the particular charms under the influence 
of which she knew him to be feeble, — for men are 
more particularl3’ susceptible to certain wa3’s, to certain 
graces of heart and mind ; and those the3’ are unable 
to resist. She wanted to interest him in her situation, 
to move his feelings enough to control his mind and so 
bend him absolutel3' to her will. Resolved to take any" 
means to reach her ends, she was still uncertain what 
to do with the man, though she meant, undoubtedly, to 
destroys him socially". 

On the evening of the third day she began to feel 
that in spite of all her efforts she could no longer con- 
ceal the anxiety she felt as to the result of her manoeu- 
vres. To obtain a moment’s relief she went up to her 
own room, sat down at her writing-table, and took off 
the mask of tranquillity she had worn before the colonel, 
like an actress returning weary to her room after a 


Colonel ChaherL 


175 


tiTing fifth act and falling half-dead upon a couch, 
while the audience retains an image of her to which she 
bears not the slightest resemblance. She began to 
finish a letter already begun to Delbecq, telling him to 
go to Derville and ask in her name for a sight of the 
papers which concerned Colonel Chabert, to copy them, 
and come immediately^ to Groslay. She had hardly 
finished before she heard the colonel’s step in the cor- 
ridor ; for he was coming, full of anxiety, to find her. 

“Oh!” she said aloud, “I wish I were dead! my 
position is intolerable — ” 

“What is it? is anything the matter?” said the 
worthy man. 

“Nothing, nothing,” she said. 

She rose, left the colonel where he was, and went to 
speak to her maid without witnesses, telling her to go 
at once to Paris and deliver the letter, which she gave 
her, into Delbecq’s own hands, and to bring it back to 
her as soon as he read it. Then she went out and seated 
herself on a bench in the garden, where she was in full 
view of the colonel if he wished to find her. He was 
already searching for her and he soon came. 

“ Rosine,” he said, “ tell me what is the matter.” 

She did not answer. It was one of those glorious 
calm evenings of the month of June, when all secret, 
harmonies diffuse such peace, such sweetness in the 
sunsets. The air was pure, the silence deep, and a 


176 


Colonel Chahert. 


distant murmur of children’s voices added a sort of 
melody to the consecrated scene. 

“ You do not answer me,” said the colonel. 

‘‘My husband — ” began the countess, then she 
stopped, made a movement, and said, appealingly, with 
a blush, “ What ought I to say in speaking of Mon- 
sieur le Comte Ferraud ? ” 

“ Call him 3^our husband, m3" poor child,” answered 
the colonel, in a kind tone ; “ he is the father of 3’our 
children.” 

“ Well, then,” she continued, “if he asks me what I 
am doing here, if he learns that I have shut myself up 
with an unknown man, what am I to sa3"? Hear me, 
monsieur,” she went on, taking an attitude that was 
full of dignit3", “ decide m3" fate ; I feel I am resigned 
to everything — ” 

“ Dear,” said the colonel, grasping his wife’s hands, 
“ I have resolved to sacrifice m3*self wholly to 3’our 
happiness — ” 

“ That is impossible,” she cried, with a convulsive 
movement. “ Remember that in that case you must 
renounce 3"our own identit3" — and do so legall3^” 

“What!” exclaimed the colonel, “does not m3" 
word satisf3" 3’ou ? ” 

The term “ legally” fell like lead upon the old man’s 
heart and roused an involuntar3* distrust. He cast a 
look upon his wife which made her blush ; she lowered 


Colonel ChaberL 


177 


her eyes, and for a moment he feared he should be 
forced to despise her. The countess was alarmed lest 
she had startled the honest shame, the stern upright- 
ness of a man whose generous nature and whose primi- 
tive virtues were well-known to her. Though these 
ideas brought a cloud to each brow they were suddenly 
dispelled, harmony was restored, — and thus: A child’s 
cry resounded in the distance. 

“ Jules, let your sister alone ! ” cried the countess. 

“What! are your children here?” exclaimed the 
colonel. 

“ Yes, but I forbade them to come in your way.” 

The old soldier understood the delicacy and the 
womanly tact shown in that graceful consideration, and 
he took her hand to kiss it. 

“ Let them come 1 ” he said. 

The little girl ran up to complain of her brother. 

“ Mamma ! he plagued me — ” 

“ Mamma ! ” 

“ It was his fault — ” 

“ It was hers — ” 

The hands were stretched out to the mother, and the 
two voices mingled. It was a sudden, delightful picture. 

“My poor children!” exclaimed the countess, not 
restraining her tears, “must I lose them? To whom 
will the court give them ? A mother’s heart cannot be 
shared. I will have them ! yes, I — ” 

12 


178 


Colonel Chahert, 


“ You are making mamma crj’,” said Jules, the elder, 
with an angry look at the colonel. 

“ Hush, Jules ! ” cried his mother, peremptorily. 

The two children examined their mother and the 
stranger with an indescribable curiosity. 

“ Yes,” continued the countess, “ if I am parted from 
Monsieur Ferraud, the^' must leave me my children ; 
if I have them, I can bear all.” 

Those words brought the success she expected. 

“ Yes,” cried the colonel, as if completing a sentence 
he had begun mentalty. “ I must return to the grave ; 
I have thought so already.” 

“How can I accept such a sacrifice?” replied the 
countess. ‘ ‘ If men have died to save the honor of 
their mistresses, they gave their lives but once. But 
this would be giving your daily life, 3’our lifetime ! No, 
no, it is impossible ; if it were only your existence per- 
haps it might be nothing, but to sign a record that 3*011 
are not Colonel Chabert, to admit 3'ourself an impostor, 
to sacrifice 3*our honor, to live a lie for all the days of 
your life, — no; human devotion cannot go to such a 
length ! No, no ! if it were not for m}^ poor children 
I would fl3' with you to the ends of the earth.” 

“But,” said Chabert, “why can I not live here, in 
that little cottage, as a friend and relative. I am as 
useless as an old cannon ; all I need is a little tobacco 
and the ‘ Constitutionnel.* ” 


Colonel Chahert. 


179 


The countess burst into tears. Then followed a 
struggle of generosit}' between them, from which Colo- 
nel Chabert came forth a conqueror. One evening, 
w'atching the mother in the midst of her children, 
deeply moved by that picture of a home, influenced, 
too, by the silence and the quiet of the country, he 
came to the resolution of remaining dead ; no longer 
resisting the thought of a legal instrument, he asked his 
wife what steps he should take to secure, irrevocably, 
the happiness of that home. 

“ Do what you will,” replied the countess ; “ I declare 
positively that I will have nothing to do with it, — I 
ought not.” 

Delbecq had then been in the house a few da3’S, and, 
in accordance with the countess’s verbal instructions, 
he had wormed himself into the confidence of the old 
soldier. The morning after this little scene Colonel 
Chabert accompanied the former lawj^er to Saint-Leu- 
Tavernj", where Delbecq had already had an agreement 
drawn up b}^ a notary, in terms so crude and brutal that 
on hearing them the colonel abruptlv’ left the office. 

“ Good God ! would you make me infamous ! wh}^ 
I should be called a forger ! ” 

“Monsieur,” said Delbecq, “I advise j’ou not to 
sign too quickl}'. You could get at least thirty thou- 
sand francs a year out of this affair; Madame would 
give them.” 


180 


Colonel Chabert, 


Blasting that scoundrel emeritus with the luminous 
glance of an indignant honest man, the colonel rushed 
from the place driven by a thousand conflicting feel- 
ings. He was again distrustful, indignant, and merci- 
ful by turns. After a time he re-entered the park of 
Groslay by a breach in the wall, and went, with slow 
steps, to rest and think at his ease, in a little stud}' 
built beneath a raised kiosk which commanded a view 
of the road from Saint-Leu. 

The path was made of that yellow earth which now 
takes the place of river-gravel, and the countess, who 
was sitting in the kiosk above, did not hear the slight 
noise of the colonel’s footstep, being preoccupied with 
anxious thoughts as to the success of her plot. Neither 
did the old soldier become aware of the presence of his 
wife in the kiosk above him. 

“Well, Monsieur Delbecq, did he sign?” asked the 
countess, when she saw the secretary, over the sunk- 
fence, alone upon the road. 

“ No, Madame ; and I don’t even know what has 
become of him. The old horse reared.” 

“We shall have to put him in Charenton,” she said ; 
“ we can do it.” 

The colonel, recovering the elasticity of his youth, 
jumped the ha-ha, and in the twinkling of an e3'e ap- 
plied the hardest pair of slaps that ever two cheeks 
received. “ Old horses kick ! ” he said. 


Colonel Chabert. 


181 


His anger once over, the colonel had no strength left 
to jump the ditch again. The truth lay before him in 
its nakedness. His wife’s words and Delbecq’s answer 
had shown him the plot to which he had so nearly been 
a victim. The tender attentions he had received were 
the bait of the trap. That thought was like a sudden 
poison, and it brought back to the old hero his past 
sufferings, phj’sical and mental. He returned to the 
kiosk through a gate of the park, walking slowly like 
a broken man. So, then, there was no peace, no truce for 
him ! Must he enter upon that odious struggle with a 
woman which Derville had explained to him? must he 
live a life of legal suits ? must he feed on gall, and drink 
each morning the cup of bitterness. Then, dreadful 
thought ! where was the money for such suits to come 
from. So deep a disgust of life came over him, that had 
a pistol been at hand he would have blown out his brains. 
Then he fell back into the confusion of ideas which, ever 
since his interview with Derville in the cow-yard, had 
changed his moral being. At last, reaching the kiosk, 
he went up the stairs to the upper chamber, whose oriel 
windows looked out on all the enchanting perspectives 
of that well-known valley, and where he found his wife 
sitting on a chair. The countess was looking at the 
landscape, with a calm and quiet demeanor, and that 
impenetrable countenance which certain determined 
women know so well how to assume. She dried her 


182 


Colonel Chahert 


eyes, as though she had shed tears, and plaj-ed, as if 
abstractedly, with the ribbons of her sash. Neverthe- 
less, in spite of this apparent composure, she could not 
prevent herself from trembling when she saw her noble 
benefactor before her, — standing, his arms crossed, his 
face pale, his brow stern. 

“ Madame,” he said, looking at her so fixedly for a 
moment that he forced her to blush ; Madame, I do 
not curse j^ou, but I despise j’ou. I now thank the 
fate which has parted us. I have no desire for' ven- 
geance ; I have ceased to love 3’ou. I want nothing 
from 3'ou. Live in peace upon the faith of my word ; 
it is worth more than the legal papers of all the notaries 
in Paris. I shall never take the name I made, per- 
haps, illustrious. Henceforth, I am but a poor devil 
named Hyacinthe, who asks no more than a place in 
God’s sunlight. Farewell — ” 

The countess fiung herself at his feet and tried to 
hold him by catching his hands, but he repulsed her 
with disgust, sa3’ing, “Do not touch me!” 

The countess made a gesture which no description 
can portra3^ when she heard the sound of her husband’s 
departing steps. Then, with that profound sagacit3" 
which comes of great wickedness, or of the savage, 
material selfishness of this world, she felt she might 
live in peace, relying on the promise and the contempt 
of that loyal soldier. 


Colonel Chahert. 


183 


Chabert disappeared. The cow-keeper failed and 
became a cab-driver. Perhaps the colonel at first 
found some such occupation. Perhaps, like a stone 
fiung into the rapids, he went from fall to fall until he 
sank engulfed in that great pool of filth and penury 
which welters in the streets of Paris. 

Six months after these events Derville, who had 
heard -nothing of Colonel Chabert or of the Comtesse 
Ferraud, thought that they had probably settled on a 
compromise, and that the countess, out of spite, had 
emploj^ed some other lawyer to draw the papers. Ac- 
cordingly, one morning he summed up the amounts ad- 
vanced to the said Chabert, added the costs, and 
requested the Comtesse Ferraud to obtain from Mon- 
sieur le Comte Chabert the full amount, presuming 
that she knew the whereabouts of her first husband. 

The next day Comte Ferraud’s secretary sent the 
following answer : — 

Monsieur, — I am directed by Madame la Comtesse 
Ferraud to inform you that your client totally deceived you, 
and that the individual calling himself the Comte Chabert 
admitted having falsely taken that name. 

Receive the assurance, etc., etc. 

Delbecq. 

“ Well, some people are, upon my honor, as devoid 
of sense as the beasts of the field, — they Ve stolen 


184 


Colonel Chahert. 


their baptism ! ” cried Derville. “ Be human, be gen- 
erous, be philanthropic, and 3*ou ’ll find j^ourself in the 
lurch ! Here ’s a business that has cost me over two 
thousand francs.” 

Not long after the reception of this letter Derville 
was at the Palais, looking for a lawyer with whom he 
wished to speak, and who was in the habit of practising 
in the criminal courts. It so chanced that Derville en- 
tered the sixth court-room as the judge was sentencing 
a vagrant named Hyacinthe to two months’ imprison- 
ment, the said vagrant to be conveyed at the expiration 
of the sentence to the mendicit}" oflSce of the Saint-Denis 
quarter, — a sentence which was equivalent to perpetual 
imprisonment. The name, Hyacinthe, caught Derville’s 
ear, and he looked at the delinquent sitting between two 
gendarmes on the prisoner’s bench, and recognized at 
once his false Colonel Chabert. The old soldier was 
calm, motionless, almost absent-minded. In spite of 
his rags, in spite of the poverty marked on every 
feature of the face, his countenance was instinct with 
noble pride. His glance had an expression of stoicism 
which a magistrate ought not to have overlooked ; but 
when a man falls into the hands of justice, he is no 
longer anything but an entity, a question of law and 
facts ; in the eyes of statisticians, he is a numeral. 

When the soldier was taken from the court-room to 
wait until the whole batch of vagabonds who were then 


Colonel Chahert, 


185 


being sentenced were ready for removal, Derville used 
his privilege as a lawyer to follow him into the room 
adjoining the sheriff’s office, where he watched him for 
a few moments, together with the curious collection of 
beggars who surrounded him. The ante-chamber of a 
sheriffs office presents at such times a sight which, un- 
fortunately, neither legislators, nor philanthropists, nor 
painters, nor writers, ever study. Like all the labora- 
tories -of the law this antechamber is dark and ill- 
smelling ; the walls are protected by a bench, black- 
ened by the incessant presence of the poor wretches 
who come to this central rendezvous from all quarters 
of social wretchedness, — not one of which is unrepre- 
sented there. A poet would say that the da^dight was 
ashamed to lighten that terrible sink-hole of all miseries. 
There is not one spot within it where crime, planned or 
committed, has not stood ; not a spot where some man, 
rendered desperate by the stigma which justice lays 
upon him for his first fault, has not begun a career 
leading to the scaffold or to suicide. All those who fall 
in Paris rebound against these yellow walls, on which 
a philanthropist could decipher the meaning of many a 
suicide about which hypocritical writers, incapable of 
■taking one step to prevent them, rail ; written on those 
walls he will find a preface to the dramas of the Morgue 
and those of the place de Greve. Colonel Chabert was 
now sitting in the midst of this crowd of men with 


186 


Colonel Chahert. 


nervous faces, clothed in the horrible liveries of pov- 
erty, silent at times or talking in a low voice, for three 
gendarmes paced the room as sentries, their sabres 
clanging against the floor. 

“Do you recognize me?” said Derville to the old 
soldier. 

“Yes, Monsieur,” said Chabert, rising. 

“ If you are an honest man,” continued Derville, in 
a low voice, “how is it that you have remained my 
debtor?” 

The old soldier colored like a young girl accused by 
her mother of a clandestine love. 

“Is it possible,” he cried in a loud voice, “that 
Madame Ferraud has not paid you?” 

“ Paid me ! ” said Derville, “ she wrote me you were 
an impostor.” 

The colonel raised his e3’es with a majestic look of 
horror and invocation as if to appeal to heaven against 
this new treachery. Monsieur,” he said, in a voice 
that was calm though it faltered, ask the gendarmes to 
be so kind as to let me go into the sheriffs office ; I will 
there write 3’ou an order which will certainly be paid.” 

Derville spoke to the corporal, and was allowed to take 
his client into the office, where the colonel wrote a few 
lines and addressed them to the Comtesse Ferraud. 

“ Send that to her,” he said, “ and 3’ou will be paid 
for ^’our loans and all costs. Believe me. Monsieur, if 


Colonel Chahert. 


187 


I have not shown the gratitude I owe j’ou for your kind 
acts it is none the less he said, laying his hand 

upon his heart ; “ 3 'esitis there, full, complete. But 
the unfortunate ones can do nothing, — they love, 
that is all.” 

“ Can it be,” said Derville, “ that 3 ’ou did not stipu- 
late for an income ? ” 

“ Don’t speak of that,” said the old man. “ You can 
never know how utterly I despise this external life to 
which the majority of men cling so tenaciously". I was 
taken suddenly with an illness, — a disgust for humanity. 
When I think that Napoleon is at Saint-Helena all 
things here below are nothing to me. I can no longer 
be a soldier, that is my only sorrow. Ah, well,” he 
added, with a gesture that was full of childlike playful- 
ness, “it is better to have luxury in our feelings than 
in our clothes. I fear no man’s contempt.” 

He went back to the bench and sat down. Der- 
ville went away. When he reached his office, he sent 
Godeschal, then advanced to be second clerk, to the 
Comtesse Ferraud, who had no sooner read the mis- 
sive he carried than she paid the money owing to Comte 
Chabert’s lawyer. 

In 1840, towards the close of the month of June, 
Godeschal, then a lawyer on his own account, was on 
his way to Ris, in company with Derville. When they 


188 


Colonel Chabert. 


reached the avenue which leads into the mail road to 
Bic^tre, they saw beneath an elm by the roadside one 
of those hoary, broken-down old paupers who rule the 
beggars about them, and live at Bicetre just as pauper 
women live at La Salpetriere. This man, one of the 
two thousand inmates of the “ Almshouse for Old Age,” 
was sitting on a stone and seemed to be giving all his 
mind to an operation well-known to the dwellers in 
charitable institutions ; that of drying the tobacco in 
their handkerchiefs in the sun, — possibly to escape 
washing them. The old man had an interesting face. 
He was dressed in that gown of dark, reddish cloth 
which the Almshouse provides for its inmates, a dread- 
ful sort of livery. 

“ Derville,” said Godeschal to his companion, “ do 
look at that old fellow. Is n’t he like those grotesque 
figures that are made in Germany. But I suppose he 
lives, and perhaps he is happy!” 

Derville raised his glass, looked at the pauper, and 
gave vent to an exclamation of surprise ; then he said : 
“ That old man, m}^ dear fellow, is a poem, or, as the 
romanticists sa}", a drama. Did you ever meet the 
Comtesse Ferraud ? ” 

“Yes, a clever woman and very agreeable, but too 
pious.” 

“ That old man is her legitimate husband, Comte 
Chabert, formerl}’ colonel. No doubt she has had him 


Colonel Chahert. 


189 


placed here. If he lives in an almshouse instead of a 
mansion, it is because he reminded the pretty countess 
that he took her, like a cab, from the streets. I can 
still see the tigerish look she gave him when he 
said it.” 

These words so excited Godeschal’s curiosity that 
Derville told him the whole stor3% Two da^^s later, on 
the following Monday' morning, as the^’ were returning 
to Paris, the two friends glanced at Bic^tre, and Der- 
ville proposed that thej- should go and see Colonel 
Chabert. Half-wa^" up the avenue the^" found the old 
man sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, and amusing 
himself b}'' drawing lines on the gravel with a stick 
which he held in his hand. When the}* looked at him 
attentively they saw that he had been breakfasting 
elsewhere than at the almshouse. 

“ Good-morning, Colonel Chabert,” said Derville. 

“ Not Chabert ! not Chabert ! my name is Hyacinthe,” 
answered the old man. “I’m no longer a man ; I ’m 
number 164, seventh room,” he added, looking at 
Derville with timid anxiety, — the fear of old age or of 
childhood. “You can see the condemned prisoner,” 
he said, after a moment’s silence ; “he’s not married, 
no ! he ’s happy — ” 

“Poor man!” said Gbdeschal; “don’t you want 
some money for tobacco?” 

The colonel extended his hand with all the naivete 


190 


Colonel Chahert. 


of a street boy to the two strangers, who each gave him 
a twent 3 ’-franc gold piece. He thanked them both, with 
a stupid look, and said, “Brave troopers ! ” Then he 
pretended to shoulder arms and take aim at them, 
calling out with a laugh, “ Fire the two pieces, and 
long live Napoleon ! ” after which he described an im- 
aginary arabesque in the air, with a flourish of his 
cane. 

“ The nature of his wound must have made him 
childish,” said Derville. 

“.He childish!” cried another old pauper who was 
watching them. ‘ ‘ Ha ! there are days when it won’t 
do to step on his toes. He ’s a knowing one, full of 
philosophy and imagination. But to-day, don’t 3 'ou 
see, he ’s been keeping Monday. Wh}^ Monsieur, he 
was here in 1820. Just about that time a Prussian 
officer, whose carriage was going over the Villejuif hill, 
walked by on foot Hyacinthe and I were sitting by 
the roadside. The officer was talking with another, I 
think it was a Russian or some animal of that kind, 
and when they saw the old fellow, the Prussian, just 
to tease him, sa 3 ’s he : ‘ Here ’s an old voltigeur who 
must have been. at Rosbach — ’ ‘I was too 3 ’oung to 
be at Rosbach,’ says H 3 ’acinthe, but I ’m old enough 
to have been at Jena I ’ Ha, ha ! that Prussian cleared 
off — and no more questions — ” 

“ What a fate ! ” cried Derville ; “ born in the Found- 


Colonel Chahert, 


191 


ling, he returns to die in the asylum of old age, having 
in the interval helped Napoleon to conquer Egypt and 
Europe ! — Do you know, my dear fellow,” continued 
Derville, after a long pause, “that there are three men 
in our social system who cannot respect or A^alue the 
world, — the priest, the physician, and the lawyer. They 
wear black gowns, perhaps because they mourn for all 
virtues, all illusions. The most unhapp}’ among them 
is the lawyer. When a man seeks a priest he is forced 
to it b}^ repentance, by remorse, by beliefs which make 
him interesting, which ennoble him and comfort the 
soul of his mediator, whose dutj’ is not without a certain 
sort of jo}' ; the priest purifies, heals, reconciles. But 
we lawyers ! we see forever the same evil feelings, never 
corrected ; our offices are sink-holes which nothing can 
cleanse. 

“How many things have I not seen and known 
and learned in m^’ practice ! 1 have seen a father die 

in a garret, penniless, abandoned by daughters, to each 
of whom he had given an income of forty thousand 
francs. I have seen wills burned. I have seen mothers 
robbing their children, husbands stealing from their 
wives, wives killing their husbands b}'' the very love 
they inspired, so as to live in peace with their lovers. 
I have seen w'omen giving to the children of a first 
marriage tastes which led them to their death, so that 
the child of love might be enriched. I could not tell 


192 


Colonel Chahert. 


you what I have seen, for I have seen crimes against 
which justice is powerless. All the horrors that ro- 
mance-writers think the}^ invent are forever below the 
truth. You are about to make acquaintance with such 
things ; as for me, I shall live in the country with my 
wife ; I have a horror of Paris. ” 

1832. 


THE ATHEIST’S MASS. 


This is dedicated to Auguste Borget, by his friend, 

De Balzac. 


A physician to whom science owes a masterly physi- 
ological theor}^ and who, though still young, has taken 
his place among the celebrities of the School of Paris, 
that centre of medical intelligence to which the phy- 
sicians of Europe pay just homage, Doctor Horace 
Bianchon practised surger}?" for some time before he 
devoted himself to medicine. His studies were directed 
b}’ one of the greatest of French surgeons, the illustri- 
ous Desplein, who passed like a meteor through the 
skies of science. Even his enemies admit that he 
carried with him to the grave an incommunicable 
method. Like all men of genius, he had no heirs of 
his faculty ; he held all within him, and he carried all 
away with him. 

The fame of surgeons is something like that of 
actors ; it lives during their lifetime onl}^ and is not 
fully appreciable after they are gone. Actors and 

13 


194 


The Atheut\ Mass. 


surgeons, also great singers, and all virtuosi who by 
execution increase the power of music tenfold, are the 
heroes of a moment. Desplein is a proof of the uni- 
versal fate of these transitory geniuses. His name, so 
celebrated yesterday, to-day almost forgotten, remains 
within the limits of his specialty, and will never reach 
beyond them. 

But, let us ask, must there not exist some extraor- 
dinaiy circumstances to bring the name of a great 
worker from the domain of science into the general 
history of humanity? Had Desplein that universality 
of knowledge which makes a man the Word and the 
Form of an era? Desplein possessed an almost divine 
insight ; he penetrated both patient and disease with 
an intuition, natural or acquired, which enabled him 
to seize the idiosyncrasies of the individual, and so 
determine the exact moment, to the hour and the 
minute, when it was right to operate, — taking note of 
atmospheric conditions, and peculiarities of tempera- 
ment. Was he guided in this by that power of deduc- 
tion and analogy to which is due the genius of Cuvier? 
However that may have been, this man certainly made 
himself the confidant of flesh ; he knew its secrets of the 
past, and of the future, as he dealt with its present. 
But did he sum up the whole of science in his own 
person, like Galen, Hippocrates, Aristotle? Has he 
led a school to new and unknown worlds? No. 


The Atheist's Mass, 


195 


Though it is impossible to deny to this perpetual 
observer of human chemistry some faculty of the an- 
cient science of magic» — that is to say, a perception of 
principles in fusion, the causes of life, the life before 
the life, and what the life becomes through its prepa- 
rations before being, — we must admit, speaking justly, 
that unfortunately' all with Desplein was Self ; he was 
isolated in life through egoism, and egoism has killed 
his fame. No speaking statue surmounts his tomb, and 
tells the future of the my’steries that genius wrested 
from her. But perhaps Desplein’s talent was one 
with his beliefs, and therefore mortal. To him, the 
terrestrial atmosphere was a generating pouch ; he saw 
the earth like an egg in its shell ; unable to discover 
whether the egg or the hen were the beginning, he de- 
nied both the cock and the egg. He believed neither 
in the anterior animal nor in the posterior spirit of man. 

Desplein was not a doubter ; he affirmed his beliefs. 
His clear-cut atheism was like that of a great many 
men of science, who are the best people in the world, 
but invincible atheists, atheists like those religious 
folk who will not admit that there can be atheists. 
It could not be otherwise with a man accustomed from 
his earliest youth to dissect the human being before, 
during, and after life ; to pry into all its apparatus 
and never find that soul-germ so essential to religious 
theories. Finding in the human body a brain centre, 


196 


The Aiheut\ Mass, 


a nervous centre, a centre of the blood circulation (the 
first two of which so complement each other that during 
the last two days of Desplein’s life he came to a con- 
viction that the sense of hearing was not absolutely 
necessar}" in order to hear, nor the sense of sight abso- 
lutel}^ necessarj^ in order to see, and that, beyond all 
doubt, the solar plexus did replace them), — Desplein, 
we say, finding thus two souls in man, corroborated his 
atheism by this ver}- fact, though he asserted nothing 
in relation to God. The man died, the world said, in 
the impenitence in which so many men of noblest 
genius unhappily leave this life, — men whom it ma}’, 
perhaps, please God to pardon. 

The life of this man presented, to use the expression 
of his enemies, who were jealous of his fame and sought 
to belittle it, many pettinesses which it is more just to 
call apparent contradictions. Fools and detractors, 
having no knowledge of the influences that act upon 
superior minds, make the most of superficial incon- 
sistencies, to bring accusations on which thej* sit in 
judgment. If, later, success attends the labors of a 
man thus attacked, showing the correlation of prepa- 
rations and results, a few of the past calumnies are 
sure to remain fixed upon him. In our day Napoleon 
was condemned by contemporaries when his eagles 
threatened England ; it needed 1822 to explain 1804 
and the flat-boats of Boulogne. 


The Atheist's Mass. 


197 


Desplein’s fame and science were invulnerable ; his 
enemies therefore found fault with his odd temper, 
his peculiar character, — the fact being that he merely 
possessed that quality which the English call “ eccen- 
tricit3\” At times gorgeousl}^ dressed, like the tragic 
Cre billon, he would change suddenly' to a singular in- 
difference in the matter of clothes ; sometimes he drove 
in his carriage, sometimes he went about on foot. By 
turns rough and kind, apparently crabbed and stingy, 
he was capable of offering his whole fortune to his ex- 
iled masters, who did him the honor to accept it for a 
few da3’s ; no man was therefore more liable to con- 
tradictor3^ judgments. Though capable, in order to 
win that black ribbon which ph3^sicians ought never 
to have solicited, of dropping a prayer-book from his 
pocket in some room at the palace, it was more because 
in his heart he sneered at all things. He had the deep- 
est contempt for men, having examined them from head 
to foot, having detected their veritable being through all 
the acts of existence, the most solemn and the most in- 
significant. In great men great qualities often support 
and require each other. Though some among these 
Colossi ma3" have more facult3' than mind, their minds 
are nevertheless more enlightened than that of others 
of whom the world sa3's simply, “ The3’' are men of 
mind.’^ All genius presupposes a moral insight ; that 
insight may be applied to some specialt3", but whoso 


198 


The Atheut" s Mass. 


can see a flower can see the sun. The story is told of 
Desplein that when he heard a diplomate, w’hose life he 
had saved, asking “ How is the Emperor?” he replied, 
'“The courtier returns, the man will follow,” — proving 
that he was not onl}' a great surgeon and a great ph}'- 
sician, but wonderfully wise and witty. So the patient 
and assiduous student of humanit}" will admit the ex- 
orbitant claims of Desplein, and will think him, as he 
thought himself, fit to be as great a statesman as he 
was a surgeon. 

Among the enigmas offered to the ej'es of contempo- 
-raries by Desplein’s life we have chosen one of the most 
interesting, because of its final word, which may, per- 
haps, vindicate his memory from certain accusations. 

Of all the pupils whom the great surgeon had taught 
in his hospital, Horace Bianchon was the one to whom 
he was most attached. Before becoming a house pupil 
at the Hotel-Dieu, Horace Bianchon was a medical stu- 
dent living in a miserable pension in the Latin quarter, 
known under the name of the Maison Vauquer. There 
the poor 3’oung fellow felt the assaults of bitter poverty’, 
that species of crucible from which great talents issue 
pure and incorruptible as diamonds which can bear all 
blows and never break. From the strong fires of their 
vehement passions such natures acquire an un«ompro- 
mising rectitude ; thej" gain the habit of those struggles 
w hich are the lot of genius through constant toil, in 


The AtheisVs Mass. 


199 


the dull round of which the}^ are forced to keep their 
balked appetites. 

Horace was an honorable 3’oung man, incapable of 
paltering with his sense of dutj' ; given to deeds, not 
words ; read}" to pawn his cloak for a friend, or to give 
him his time and his nights in watching. Horace was, 
indeed, one of those friends who care nothing for what 
they receive in exchange for what the}" give, sure of 
finding a return in their hearts far greater than the 
value of their gift. Most of his friends felt that in- 
ward respect for him which virtue without assumption 
inspires, and many among them feared his censure. 
Horace displayed his fine qualities without conceit. 
Neither a puritan nor a sermonizer, he gave advice 
with an oath, and was ready enough for a “ tron9on 
de chiere lie ” when occasion offered. A jolly comrade, 
no more prudish than a cuirassier, frank and open, — 
not as a sailor, for sailors now-a-days are wily diplo- 
mates, — but like a brave young fellow with nothing to 
conceal in his life, he walked the earth with his head 
up and his thoughts happy. To express him in one 
sentence, Horace was the Pylades of more than one 
Orestes, creditors being in these days the nearest 
approach to the ancient Furies. He carried his pov- 
erty with an easy gayety which is perhaps one of 
the greatest elements of courage, and like all those 
who have nothing he contracted few debts. Sober as 


200 


The Atheist's Mass, 


a camel, agile as a deer, he was firm in his ideas, and 
in his conduct. Bian chon’s successful life may be 
said , to have begun on the day when the illustrious 
surgeon became full}' aware of the virtues and the 
defects which made Doctor Horace Bianchon so doubly 
dear to his friends. 

When a clinical chief takes a young man into his 
rounds that young man has, as they say, his foot in the 
stirrup. Desplein always took Bianchon with him for 
the sake of his assistance when he went among his opu- 
lent patients, where many a fee dropped into the pupil’s 
pouch, and where, little by little, the mysteries of 
Parisian life revealed themselves to his provincial e3’es. 
Desplein kept him in his study during consultations 
and employed him there ; sometimes he sent him trav- 
elling with a rich patient to baths ; in short, he provided 
him with a practice. The result was that, after a time, 
the autocrat of surger}^ had an alter ego. These two 
men — one at the summit of science and of all honors, 
enjoying a large fortune and a great fame ; the other, 
the modest omega, without either fame or fortune — be- 
came intimates. The great Desplein told his pupil every- 
thing ; the pupil knew what woman had been seated in 
a chair beside the master, or on the famous sofa which 
was in the study and on which Desplein slept ; Bian- 
chon knew the mysteries of that temperament, half- 
lion, half-bull, which finally expanded and amplified 


The Atheist's Mass. 


201 


beyond all reason the great man’s chest, and caused 
his death by enlargement of the heart. He studied 
the eccentricities of that bus}^ life, the schemes of 
that sordid avarice, the hopes of the politic man hid- 
den in the scientific man ; he was therefore fitted to 
detect the deceptions, had any existed, in the sole 
sentiment buried in a heart that was less hard than 
hardened. 

One day Bianchon told Desplein that a poor water- 
carrier in the quartier Saint-Jacques had a horrible 
disease caused b}’ over-work and poverty ; this poor 
Auvergnat had eaten nothing but potatoes during the 
severe winter of 1821. Desplein left all his patients 
and rushed off, followed by Bianchon, and took the 
poor man himself to a private hospital established by 
the famous Dubois, in the faubourg Saint-Denis. He 
attended the man personally, and when he recovered 
gave him enough money to buy a horse and a water- 
cart. This Auvergnat was remarkable for an original 
act. One of his friends fell ill, and he took him at 
once to Desplein, saying to his benefactor, “ I would n’t 
hear of his going to any one else.” Gruff as he was, 
Desplein pressed the water-carrier’s hand. “ Bring 
them all to me,” he said ; and he put the friend in the 
HOtel-Dieu, where he took extreme care of him. Bian- 
clion had already noticed several times the evident 
predilection his chief felt for an Auvergnat, and es- 


202 


The Atheist's Mass. 


peciall}^ for a water-carrier, but as Desplein’s pride was 
in the management of his hospital cases the pupil saw 
nothing really strange in the incident. 

One da}", crossing the place Saint-Sulpice, Bianchon 
caught sight of his master entering the church about 
nine o’clock in the morning. Desplein, who at that 
time of his life went everywhere in his cabriolet, was 
on foot, and was slipping along by the rue du Petit- 
Lion as if in quest of some questionable resort. Natu- 
rally seized with curiosity, the pupil, who knew the 
opinions of his master, slipped into Saint-Sulpice him- 
self, and was not a little amazed to see the great 
Desplein, that atheist without pity even for the angels 
who so little require a scalpel and cannot have stomach- 
aches or fistulas, in short, that bold scoffer, humbly 
kneeling — where? in the chapel of the Virgin, before 
whom he was hearing a mass, paying for the service, 
giving money for the poor, and as serious in demeanor 
as if preparing for an operation. 

“Heavens!” thought Bianchon, whose amazement 
was beyond all bounds. “ If I had seen him holding 
one of the ropes of the canopy at the F^te-Dieu I 
should have known it was all a joke ; but here, at this 
hour, alone, without witnesses ! Certainly it is some- 
thing to think about.” 

Not wishing to seem to spy upon the great surgeon 
of the Hotel-Dieu, Bianchon went away. It so chanced 


The Atheist's Mass, 


203 


that Desplein asked him to dine with him that day, 
awa}^ from home, at a restaurant. By the time the 
dessert appeared Bianchon had reached by clever stages 
the topic of religious services, and called the mass a 
a farce and a mummery. 

“A farce,” said Desplein, “which has cost Chris- 
tianity more blood than all the battles of Napoleon and 
all the leeches of Broussais. The mass is a papal 
invention based on the Hoc est corpus, aud dates back 
to the sixth century only. What torrents of blood had 
to flow to establish the Fete-Dieu, hy the institution of 
which the court of Rome sought to conflrm its victory 
in the matter of the Real Presence, — a schism which 
kept the church in hot water for three centuries ! The 
wars of the Comte de Toulouse and the Albigenses were 
the sequel of it. The Vaudois and the Albigenses both 
refused to accept that innovation — ” 

And Desplein launched with all an atheist’s ardor into 
a flux of Voltairean sarcasm, or, to be more exact, into 
a wretched imitation of the “ Citateur.” 

“Whew!” thought Bianchon; “where’s the man 
who was on his knees this morning?” 

He was silent, for he began to doubt whether he had 
really seen his chief at Saint-Sulpice after all. Desplein 
would surel}^ never have troubled himself to deceive 
him. They knew each other too well, had exchanged 
thoughts or questions fully as serious, and discussed 


204 


The Atheisms Mass, 


S3’stems de natura rerum,, probing them or dissecting 
them with the knife and scalpel of unbelief. 

Six months went by. Bianchon took no outward 
notice of this circumstance, though it remained stamped 
in his memor}’. One day a doctor belonging to the 
Hotel-Dieu took Desplein by the arm in Bianchon’s 
presence as if to question him, and said, — 

“ Why did you go to Saint-Sulpice to-day, m3" dear 
master? ” 

‘‘ To see a priest with caries of the knee whom 
Madame la Duchesse d’Angouleme did me the honor 
to recommend to me,” replied Desplein. 

The doctor was satisfied, but not so Bianchon. 

“Ha! he went to see a stiff knee in a church, 
did he?” thought the pupil. “He went to hear his 
mass.” 

Bianchon resolved to watch Desplein. He recollected 
the da3" and hour at which he had seen him entering 
Saint-Sulpice, and he determined to return the next 
3’ear at the same time and see if he should surprise 
him in the same place. If so, then the periodicity of 
his devotion would warrant scientific investigation ; for 
it was impossible to expect in such a man a positive 
contradiction between thought and action. 

The following 3’ear, at the time named, Bianchon, 
who was now no longer Desplein’s pupil, saw the 
surgeon's cabriolet stop at the corner of the rue de 


The Atheist's Mass, 


205 


Tournon and the rue du Petit-Lion, from which point 
his friend slipped jesuitically along the wall of the 
church, where he again entered and heard mass be- 
fore the altar of the Virgin. Yes, it assuredly was 
Desplein, the surgeon-in-chief, the atheist in petto, the 
pietist b}' chance. The plot thickened. The persist- 
ency of the illustrious surgeon added a complication. 

When Desplein had left the church, Bianchon went 
up to the verger, who was rearranging the altar, and 
asked him if that gentleman were in the habit of 
coming there. 

“It is twenty 3 ’ears since I came here,” said the 
verger, “ and ever since then Monsieur Desplein comes 
four times a 3 "ear to hear this mass. He founded it.” 

“ A mass founded by him ! ” thought Bianchon as 
he walked away. “It is a greater m 3 ’stery than the 
Immaculate Conception, — a thing, in itself, which would 
make any doctor an unbeliever.” 

Some time went b}" before Doctor Bianchon, though 
Desplein’s friend, was in a position to speak to him of 
this singularity of his life. When thej" met in consul- 
tation or in societ}’^ it was difficult to find that moment 
of confidence and solitude in which they could sit with 
their feet on the andirons, and their heads on the back 
of their chairs, and tell their secrets as two men do at 
such times. At last, however, after the revolution of 
1830, when the populace attacked the Archbishop’s 


206 


The Atheist's Mass, 


palace, when republican instigations drove the crowd 
to destro}^ the gilded crosses which gleamed like flashes 
of lightning among the man}' roofs of that ocean of 
houses, when unbelief, keeping pace with the riot, 
strutted openly in the streets, Bianchon again saw 
Desplein entering Saint-Sulpice. He followed him and 
knelt beside him, but his friend made no sign and 
showed not the least surprise. Together they heard 
the mass. 

“ Will you tell me, my dear friend,” said Bianchon, 
when they had left the church, ‘ ‘ the reason for this 
pious performance? This is the third time I have 
caught you going to mass, you! You must tell me 
what this mystery means, and explain the discrepancy 
between your opinions and your conduct. You don’t 
believe, but /you go to mass I My dear master, I hold 
you bound to answer me.” 

“I am like a great many pious people, — men who 
are deeply religious to all appearance, but who are 
really as much atheists at heart as you or I — ” 

And he went on with a torrent of sarcasms on certain 
political personages, the best known of whom presents 
to this century a new and living edition of the Tartufe 
of Moliere. 

. “ I am not talking to you about that,” said Bianchon ; 
“ I want to know the reason for what you have just 
done; and why you founded that mass?’* 


The AtheMs 'Mass* 


207 


* “Ah, well! my dear friend,” replied Desplein, “I 
am on the verge of my grave, and I can afford to tell 
you the events of m}^ early life.” 

Just then Bianchon and the great surgeon were pass- 
ing through the rue des Quatre- Vents, one of the most 
horrible streets in Paris. Desplein pointed to the sixth 
story of a house that looked like an obelisk,” the gate of 
which opened upon a passage-wa}- at the end of which 
was a winding stair lighted by holes in the planked side 
of it. It was a greenish-looking house, occupied on the 
ground-floor by a furniture-dealer, and seeming to 
harbor on each story some different form of povert}". 
Desplein threw up his arm with an energetic action 
and said to Bianchon, “I once lived up there for two 
years.” 

“I know the house; d’Arthez lived in it. I went 
there nearly eveiy day in m3’ earl3’ 3'outh ; we used to 
call it the ‘ harbor of great men.’ Well, what next?” 

“The mass I have just heard is connected with events 
which happened when I lived in the garret where 3’ou 
sa3’ d’Arthez lived, — that one, where you see the 
clothes-line and the linen above the flower-pots. 
beginnings were so hard, my dear Bianchon, that I 
can bear away the palm of Parisian sufferings from 
every one, no matter who. I have endured all, — hun- 
ger, thirst, the want of a penn3’, of linen, boots, all, 
even the worst that poverty can bring. I have blown 


208 


The Atheist"' s Mass, 


upon my frozen fingers in that harbor of great men, 
which I should like now to see again with 3*ou. I have 
worked there a whole winter and seen the vapor issu- 
ing from m}^ head just as 3'ou see horses smoking in 
frosty weather. 

“ I don’t know where a man can take his stand and 
find support against a life like that. I was alone, with- 
out help, without a sou to buj" books, or to pa\’ the 
costs of my medical education ; having no friend to 
understand me, m3" irascible temper, uneas3" and 
touch}^ as it is, did me harm. No one saw in 1113" irri- 
table ways the evidence of the anxiet3" and toil of a 
man who from the lowest social state is struggling to 
reach the surface. But I had, — and this I can sa3" to 
3^011 before whom there is no need that I should drape 
m3'self, — I had that understratum of right feelings and 
keen sensibilit3" which will always be the attribute of 
men who are strong enough to mount a height, no 
matter what it is, after paddling long in the swamps 
of misery. I could ask nothing of m3" famil3’, nor of 
my native town, beyond the insufficient allowance that 
the3" made me. 

“ Well, at this time of m3" life, I made m3" breakfast 
of a roll sold to me b3" the baker of the rue du Petit- 
Lion at half-price, because it was a da3" or two da3 s 
old, and I crumbled it into some milk. So my morning 
repast cost me exactl3" two sous. I dined, every other 


The Atheist^s Mass. 


209 


day only, in a pension where the dinner cost sixteen 
sous. Thus I spent no more than ten sous a day. 
You know as well as I do what care I had to take of 
my clothes and m3" boots ! I really can’t tell whether 
we suffer more in after 3"ears from the treachery of a 
tried friend than y’ou and I have suffered from the 
smiling grin of a crack in our boots, or the threadbare 
look of a coat-sleeve. I drank nothing but water, and 
I held the cafes in reverence. Zoppi seemed to me the 
promised land, where the Luculluses of the Latin quarter 
alone had the right of entrance. ‘ Shall I ever,^ I 
used to say to myself, ‘ drink a cup of coffee there, 
with cream, and play a game of dominoes? ’ 

“ So I let loose upon my work the rage my misery 
caused me. I tried to possess my’self of positive knowl- 
edge, so as to have a vast personal value, and thus de- 
serve distinction when the da}" came that I should issue 
from my nothingness. I consumed more oil than bread ; 
the lamp which lighted me during those toilsome nights 
cost me more than all my food. The struggle was long, 
obstinate, and without alleviation. I awakened no sym- 
path}" in any one about me. To have friends’ we must 
be friendly with young men, we must have a few sous 
to tipple with, we must frequent the places where other 
students go ; but I had nothing ! Who is there in 
Paris who realizes that nothing is nothing? When I 
was forced at times to reveal my poverty" my throat 
14 


210 


The Atheist's Mass. 


contracted just as it does with our patients, who then 
imagine that a ball is rolling up from the oesophagus to 
the lar^mx. In later years 1 have met these people, 
born rich, who, never having wanted for anything, knew 
nothing of the problem of this rule of three : A young 
man is to crime what a five-franc piece is to x. These 
gilded imbeciles would say to me : ‘ But why do you 
run in debt? why do you saddle yourself with obliga- 
tions?’ They remind me of the princess who, when 
she heard the people were djung for want of bread, 
remarked : ‘ Wh}" don’t they buy cake? ’ 

“Well, well, I should like to see one of those rich 
fellows who complain that I charge them too dear for 
m3" operations, — 3"es, I should like to see one of them 
alone in Paris, without a penny to bless himself with, 
without a friend, without credit, and forced to work 
with his five fingers to get food. What would he do ? 
where would he go to appease his hunger ? — Bianchon, 
if \"ou have sometimes seen me hard and bitter, it was 
when I was setting my earl3’ sufferings against the un- 
feeling selfishness of which I have had ten thousand 
proofs in the upper ranks of life ; or else I was thinking 
of the obstacles which hatred, env}", jealous}", and cal- 
umii}" had raised between success and me. In Paris, 
when certain persons see 3-011 about to put your foot in 
the stirrup some of them will catch you b}- the tails of 
3'our coat, others will loosen the buckles of the belly- 


The Atheist^s Mass, 


211 


band to give 3’ou a fall which will crack ,TOur skull ; 
that one will pull the nails out of the horses’ shoes, that 
other will steal your whip ; the least treacherous is he 
whom 3"ou see approaching with a pistol to blow out 
\"our brains. 

“ Ah ! my dear lad, 3"Ou have talent enough to be soon 
plunged into the horrible 'strife, the incessant warfare 
which mediocrity wages against superior men. If you 
lose twent3"-five louis some evening the next da}^ you 
are accused of being a gambler, and 3’our best friends 
will spread the news that you have lost twenty’-five 
thousand francs. Have a headache, and the}- ’ll say 
you are insane. Get angr^’, and the^" ’ll call j-ou a 
Timon. If, for the purpose of resisting this battalion 
of p3’gmies, 3’ou call up within 3*ou all the powers you 
possess, 3’our best friends will cr3’’ out that 3'ou want to 
destro3’ ever3’thing, that 3’ou want to rule, to t3Tannize. 
In short, your fine qualities are called defects, 3^our 
defects vices, and 3'our vices crimes. Though 3’ou may 
save a patient 3"Ou will have the credit of killing him ; 
if he recovers, you have sacrificed his future life to the 
present ; if he does n’t die, he soon will. Slip, and 3’ou 
are down ! Make an invention, claim 3'our right to it, 
and 3’ou are a quarrelsome knave, a stingy man, who 
won’t let the 3’oung ones have a chance. 

“ And so, my dear fellow, if I don’t believe in God, 
still less do I believe in man. Don’t you know that 


212 


The Atheist's Mass, 


there is in me a Desplein who is totalh’ different from 
the Desplein whom the world traduces? But don’t let 
us drag that mudd}" pond. 

“ Well, to go back, I lived in that house, and I was 
working to pass my first examination and I had n’t a 
brass farthing. You know ! — I had reached that last 
extremity where a man saj’s, ‘ I ’ll pawn ! ’ I had 
one hope. I expected a trunk of underclothing from 
my home, a present from some old aunts, who, knowing 
nothing of Paris, think about your shirts, and imagine 
that with an allowance of thirty francs a month their 
nephew must be living on ortolans. The trunk arrived 
one day when I was at the hospital ; the carriage cost 
forty francs ! The porter, a German shoemaker who 
lived in the loft, paid the money and kept the trunk. 
I walked about the rue des Fosses-Saint-Germain-des 
Pres and the rue de L’Ecole-de-Medecine without being 
able to invent any stratagem b^^ which I could get 
possession of that trunk without paying the fort}" 
francs, which I could, of course, pay at once as soon 
as I had sold the underclothes. My stupidity was 
enough to prove that I had no other vocation than that 
of surger}". My dear Bianchon, sensitive souls whose 
forces work in the higher spheres of thought, lack the 
spirit of intrigue which is so fertile in resources and 
schemes ; their good genius is chance, — they don’t seek, 
they find. 


The Atheisms Mass. 


213 


“ That night I entered the house just as my neigh- 
bor, a water-carrier named Bourgeat, from Saint-Flour, 
came home. We knew each other as two tenants must 
when their rooms are on the same landing, and they 
hear one another snore, and cough, and dress, and 
at length become accustomed to one another. My 
neighbor told me that the proprietor of the house, to 
whom I owed three months rent, had turned me out ; 
I was warned to quit the next day. He himself was 
also told to leave on account of his occupation. I 
passed the most dreadful night of my life. How could 
I hire a porter to carry away my few poor things, m}’’ 
books? how could I pay him? where could I go? 
These insoluble questions I said over and over to 
myself in tears, just as madmen repeat their sing- 
song. I fell asleep. Ah ! poverty alone has the divine 
slumber full of glorious dreams ! 

“ The next morning, as I was eating my bowlful of 
bread and milk, Bourgeat came in, and said in his 
patois, ‘ Monsieur, I ’m a poor man, a foundling from 
the hospital at Saint-Flour, without father or mother, 
and I ^m not rich enough to marry. You are no bet- 
ter off for friends, and relations, and money, as I 
judge. Now listen ; there is a hand-cart out there 
which I have hired for two sous an hour ; it will hold 
all our things ; if you like, we can go and find some 
cheap lodging which will hold us both, as we are both 


( 


214 


The AtheuVs Mass. 


turned out of here. After all, 3 "Ou know, it isn’t a 
terrestrial paradise.’ ‘ I know that,’ I said, ‘ good 
Bourgeat, but 1 am in a great quandary’ ; I have a 
trunk downstairs which contains at least three hun- 
dred francs’ worth of linen, with which I could pa}’ 
the proprietor if I could onl}’ get it from the porter, to 
whom I owe fort}’ francs for the carriage.’ ‘ Bah ! ’ he 
cried, cheerily, ‘ I ’ve got a few pennies tucked away ; ’ 
and he pulled out a dirty old leather purse. ‘ Keep your 
linen ; you ’ll want it.’ 

“ Bourgeat paid my three months’ rent, and his own, 
and the porter. He put all our things and the trunk 
into his hand-cart, and dragged it through the streets, 
stopping before each house where a sign was up. Then 
I went in to see if the place would suit us. At mid- 
day we were still wandering round the Latin quarter 
without having found what we wanted. The price was 
the great obstacle. Bourgeat invited me to breakfast 
in a wine-shop, leaving the hand-cart before the door. 
Towards evening, I found in the Cour de Rohan, pas- 
sage du Commerce, on the top-floor of a house, under 
the roof, two rooms, separated by the staircase. For a 
yearly rent of sixty francs each, we were able to take 
them. So there we were, housed, my humble friend and 
I. We dined together. Bourgeat, who earned about 
fifty sous a day, possessed something like three hun- 
dred francs. He was close upon realizing his great 


The Atheist's Mass, 


215 


ambition, which was to buy a horse and a water-cart. 
Learning situation, for he wormed my secrets out 
of me, with a depth of cunning and an air of good- 
fellowship the remembrance of which to this day stirs 
every fibre of my heart, he renounced, for a time, the 
ambition of his life. Bourgeat never attained it; he 
sacrificed his three hundred francs to my future.” 

Desplein clasped the arm he held, violently. 

“ He gave me the money I needed for my examina- 
tions. That man — my friend — felt that I had a mis- 
sion ; that the needs of my intellect were greater than 
his own. He busied himself with me ; he called me his 
son ; he lent me the money I needed to buy books ; he 
came in sometimes, very softly, to watch me at work ; 
he substituted, with the forethought of a mother, a 
nourishing and sufficient diet for the poor fare to which 
I had been so long condemned. Bourgeat, a man then 
about forty years of age, had a middle-aged burgher 
face, a prominent forehead, and a head which a painter 
might have chosen for a model for Lj^curgus. The poor 
soul had a heart full of unplaced affection. He had 
never been loved except by a dog which had recently 
died, and of which he often spoke to me, asking whether 
I thought the Church would be willing to say masses 
for the repose of its soul. That dog, he said, was a 
true Christian, who for twelve years had gone with 
him to church and never barked, listening to the organ 


216 


The Atheist's Mass. 


without opening his jaws, and crouching by him when 
he knelt as if he prayed also. 

“That man, that Auvergne water-carrier, spent all 
his affection upon me. He accepted me as a lonelj^, 
suffering human being ; he became m}^ mother, my deli- 
cate benefactor ; in short, the ideal of that virtue which 
delights in its own work. When I met him about his 
business in the street he flung me a glance of inconceiv- 
able generosity ; he pretended to walk as if he carried 
nothing ; he showed his happiness in seeing me in good 
health and well-clothed. His devotion to me was that 
of the people, — the love of a grisette for one above 
her. Bourgeat did my errands, woke me at night when 
I had to be called, cleaned my lamp, polished mj^ floor ; 
as good a servant as a kind father, and as clean as 
an English girl. He kept house. Like Philopoemen, 
he sawed our wood, and gave to all his actions the 
simple dignity of toil ; for he seemed to comprehend 
that the object ennobled all. 

“ When I left that noble man to enter the Hdtel- 
Dieu as an indoor pupil, he suffered dark distress from 
the thought that he could no longer live with me ; but 
he consoled himself with the idea of la3dng by the 
monej^ required for the expenses of my thesis, and he 
made me promise to come and see him on all m3" da3"s 
out. If you will look up my thesis you will find that 
it is dedicated to him. 


The Atheist's Mass, 


217 


“ During the last year I was in hospital I earned 
money enough to return all I owed to that noble Auver- 
gnat, with which I bought him his horse and water-cart. 
He was very angry when he found out I had deprived 
myself of my earnings, and yet delighted to see his 
desires realized ; he laughed and scolded, looked at his 
cart and at his horse, and wiped his eyes, saying to me : 
‘ It is all wrong. Oh, what a fine cart ! You had no 
right to do it ; that horse is as strong as an Auvergnat.' 
Never did I see anything as touching as that scene. 
Bourgeat positively insisted on buying me that case of 
instruments mounted in silver which you have seen in 
m}^ study, and which is to me the most precious pf my 
possessions. Though absolutely intoxicated by my 
success, he never by word or gesture let the thought 
escape him, ‘ It is to me that he owes it.’ And yet, 
without him, misery would have killed me. 

“ The poor man had wrecked himself for me ; all he 
ate was a little bread rubbed with garlic, that I might 
have coffee for my studious nights. He fell ill. You 
can well believe that I spent nights at his bedside. I 
pulled him through the first time, but he had a relapse 
two years later, and, in spite of all my care, he died. 
No king was ever cared for as he was. Yes, Bianchon, 
to save that life I tried amazing things. I longed to 
make him live as the witness of his own work ; to 
realize his hopes, to satisfy the sole gratitude that ever 


218 


The Atheisms Mass. 


entered heart, to extinguish a fire which burns there 
still. 

“ Bourgeat,” resumed Desplein, with visible emotion, 
“ my second father, died in my arms, leaving all he pos- 
sessed to me, in a will drawn up by a street writer and 
dated the 3"ear we went to live in the Cour de Rohan. 
That man had the faith of his kind ; he loved the 
Blessed Virgin as he would have loved his wife. An 
ardent Catholic, he never said one word to me about m3" 
irreligion. When he was in danger of death he asked 
me to spare nothing that he might have the succor of the 
Church. Ever3^ day masses were said for him. Often 
during the night he would tell me of his fears for the 
future ; he thought he had not lived devoutl3" enough. 
Poor man ! he had toiled from morning till night. To 
whom else does heaven belong, — if indeed there is a 
heaven? He received the last offices of religion, like 
the saint that he was, and his death was worth3" of his 
life. I, alone, followed him to the grave. When the 
earth covered m3" sole benefactor I sought a way to 
pa3" my debt to him. He had neither famil3", nor 
friends, nor wife, nor children, but, he believed ! he 
had a deep religious belief ; what right had I to dispute 
it? He had timidl3^ spoken to me of masses for the 
repose of the dead, but he never imposed that dut3" 
upon me, thinking, no doubt, it would seem like pa3’- 
ment for his services. The moment I was able to 


The Atheist's Mass. 


219 


found a mass I gave Saint-Sulpice the necessary sum 
for four yearly services. As the sole thing I can offer 
to Bourgeat is the satisfaction of his pious wishes, I 
go in his name and recite for him the appointed prayers 
at the beginning of each season. I say with the sin- 
cerity of a doubter : ‘ My God, if there be a sphere 
where thou dost place after death the souls of the 
perfect, think of the good Bourgeat; and if there is 
anything to be suffered for him, grant me those suffer- 
ings that he may the sooner enter what, they sa}’, is 
heaven.^ 

“ That, my dear friend, is all a man of my opinions 
can do. God must be a good sort of devil, and he ’ll 
not blame me. I swear to you I would give all I am 
worth if Bourgeat’s belief could enter my brain.” 

Bianchon, who took care of Desplein in his last 
illness, dares not affirm that the great surgeon died an 
atheist. Believers will like to think that the humble 
water-carrier opened to him the gates of heaven, as he 
had once opened to him the portals of that terrestial 
temple on the pediment of which are inscribed the 
words : — 

“ To HER Great Men, a grateful Country ! ” 


1836. 


I 


LA GRANDE BRETJICHE, 


“Ah! Madame,” replied Doctor Horace Bianchon 
to the lady at whose house he was supping, “it is 
true that I have many terrible histories in m}^ reper- 
toiy ; but eveiy tale has its due hour in a conversa- 
tion, according to the clever saying reported by 
Chamfort and said to the Due de Fronsac: “There 
are ten bottles of champagne between your joke and 
the present moment.” 

“But it is past midnight; what better hour could 
j’ou have?” said the mistress of the house. 

“Yes, tell us. Monsieur Bianchon,” urged the as- 
sembled company. 

At a gesture from the complying doctor, silence 
reigned. 

“About a hundred j’ards from Vendome,” he said, 
“on the banks of the Loir, is an old brown house, 
covered with very steep roofs, and so completely 
isolated that there is not so much as an evil-smelling 
tannery, nor a shabby inn such as you see at the en- 
trance of all little towns, in its neighborhood. In 


222 


La Grande Breteche, 


front of this dwelling is a garden overlooking the 
river, where the box edgings, once carefully clipped, 
which bordered the paths, now cross them and straggle 
as they fancy. A few willows with their roots in the 
Loir have made a rapid growth, like the enclosing 
hedge, and together they half hide the house. Plants 
which we call weeds drape the bank towards the river 
with their beautiful vegetation. Fruit-trees, neglected 
for half a score of years, no longer yield a product, and 
their shoots and suckers have formed an undergrowth. 
The espaliers are like a hornbeam hedge. The paths, 
formerly gravelled, are full of purslain ; so that, strictly 
speaking, there are no paths at all. 

“ From the crest of the mountain, on which hang 
the ruins of the old castle of Vendome (the only spot 
whence the eye can look down into this enclosure) we 
say to ourselves that at an earlier period, now difficult 
to determine, this corner of the earth was the delight 
of some gentleman devoted to roses and tuKps, in a 
word, to horticulture, but above all possessing a keen 
taste for good fruits. An arbor is still standing, or 
rather the remains of one, and beneath it is a table 
which time has not yet completely demolished. 

“From the aspect of this garden, now no more, the 
negative joys of the peaceful life of the provinces can 
be inferred, just as we infer the life of some worthy 
from the epitaph on his tomb. To complete the sad 


La Grande Breteche, 


223 


and tender ideas which take possession of the soul, a 
sundial on the wall bears this inscription, Christian 3’et 
bourgeois, ‘ Ultimam Cogita.’ The roofs are dilapi- 
dated, the blinds alwa3^s closed, the balconies are filled 
with swallows’ nests, the gates are locked. Tall herbs 
and grasses trace in green lines the chinks and crevices 
of the stone portico ; the locks are rusty. Sun and 
moon, summer and winter and snow have rotted the 
wood, warped the planks, and worn awaj" the paint. 
The gloomy silence is unbroken save b}" the birds, the 
cats, the martens, the rats, the mice, all free to scamper 
or fl}", and to fight, and to eat themselves up. 

“ An invisible hand has written the word ‘ Mystery* 
ever}' where. If, impelled by curiosity, you wish to 
look at this house, on the side towards the road you 
will see a large gate with an arched top, in which the 
children of the neighborhood have made large holes. 
This gate, as I heard later, had been disused for ten 
years. Through these irregular holes you can observe 
the perfect harmony which exists ' between the garden 
side, and the courtyard side of the premises. The 
same neglect everywhere. Lines of grass surround 
the paving-stones. Enormous cracks furrow the walls, 
the blackened eaves of which are festooned with pelli- 
tory. The steps of the portico are disjointed, the rope 
of the bell is rotten, the gutters are dropping apart. 
What fire from heaven has fallen here? What tribunal 


224 


La Grande Bretecht. 


has ordained that salt be cast upon this dwelling? Has 
God been mocked here ; or France betra3’ed ? These 
are the questions we ask as we stand there ; the rep- 
tiles crawl about but they' give no answer. 

“ This empty and deserted house is a profound 
enigma, whose solution is known to none. It was 
formeiiy’^ a small fief, and is called La Grande Breteche. 
During my stay at Vendome, where Desplein had sent 
me in charge of a rich patient, the sight of this strange 
dwelling was one of mj^ keenest pleasures. It was bet- 
ter than a ruin. A ruin possesses memories of positive 
authenticity ; but this habitation, still standing, though 
slowly demolished by an avenging hand, contained some 
secret, some mysterious thought, — it betrayed at least 
a strange caprice. 

“ More than once of an evening I jumped the hedge, 
now a tangle, which guarded the enclosure. I braved 
the scratches ; I walked that garden without a master, 
that property" which was neither public nor private ; for 
hours I stay’ed there contemplating its decay. Not 
even to obtain the history" which underlay" (and to 
which no doubt was due) this strange spectacle would 
I have asked a single question of any" gossiping coun- 
tryman. Standing there I invented enchanting tales ; 
I gave myself up to debauches of melancholy" which 
fascinated me. Had I known the reason, perhaps a 
common one, for this strange desertion, I should have 


La Q-rande Breteche* 


225 


lost the unwritten poems with which I intoxicated m}"- 
self. To me this sanctuarj^ evoked the most varied 
images of human life darkened by sorrows ; sometimes 
it was a cloister without the nuns ; sometimes a grave- 
3’ard and its peace, without the dead who talk to 3'ou in 
epitaphs ; to-day the house of the leper, to-morrow that 
of the Atrides ; but above all was it the provinces with 
their composed ideas, their hour-glass life. 

“ Often I wept there, but I never smiled. More than 
once an involuntar}’ terror seized me, as I heard above 
my head the muffled wfflirr of a ringdove’s wings 
hurrying past. The soil is damp ; care must be taken 
against the lizards, the vipers, the frogs, which wander 
about with the wild liberty of nature ; above all, it is 
well not to fear cold, for there are moments w'hen you 
feel an icy mantle laid upon 3'our shoulders like the 
hand of the Commander on the shoulder of Don Juan. 
One evening I shuddered ; the wind had caught and 
turned a rusty vane. Its creak was like a moan issuing 
from the house ; at a moment, to6, when I was ending 
a gloomy drama in which I explained to mj^'self the 
monumental dolor of that scene. 

“ That night I returned to m}’ inn, a prey to gloomj^ 
thoughts. After I had supped the landladj^ entered my 
room with a mysterious air, and said to me, ‘ Mon- 
sieur, Monsieur Regnault is here.’ 

“ ‘ Who is Monsieur Regnault? ’ 

15 


226 


La Grande Breteche, 


“‘Is it possible that Monsieur does n’t know Mon- 
sieur Regnault ? Ah, how funny ! ’ she said, leaving 
the room. 

“ Suddenl3' I beheld a long, slim man, clothed in black, 
holding his hat in his hand, who presented himself, 
much like a ram about to leap on a rival, and showed 
me a retreating forehead, a small, pointed head and a 
livid face, in color somewhat like a glass of dirty water. 
You would have taken him for the usher of a minister. 
This unknown personage wore an old coat much worn 
in the folds, but he had a diamond in the frill of his 
shirt, and gold earrings in his ears. 

“ ‘ Monsieur, to whom have I the honor of speaking? ’ 
I said. 

“ He took a chair, sat down before mj’ fire, laid his 
hat on m}' table and replied, rubbing his hands : ‘ Ah ! 
it is very cold. Monsieur, I am Monsieur Regnault.’ 

“I bowed, saying to m^'self: ‘7/ bondo canil 
seek ! ’ 

“ ‘ I am,’ he said, ‘ the notar}" of Vendome.’ 

“ ‘ Delighted, monsieur,’ I replied, ‘ but I am not in 
the way of making my will, — for reasons, alas, too 
well-known to me.’ 

“ ‘ One moment ! ’ he resumed, raising his hand as if 
to impose silence ; ‘ Permit me, monsieur, permit me ! 
I have learned that you sometimes enter the garden of 
La Grande Breteche and walk there — ’ 


La Grande Breteche, 


227 


“ ‘Yes, monsieur/ 

“‘One moment!' he said, repeating his gesture. 
‘That action constitutes a misdemeanor. Monsieur, I 
come in the name and as testamentary executor of the 
late Comtesse de Merret to beg you to discontinue your 
visits. One moment,! I am not a Turk ; I do not wish 
to impute a crime to you. Besides, it is quite excusable 
that you, a stranger, should be ignorant of the circum- 
stances which compel me to let the handsomest house 
in Vendome go to ruin. Nevertheless, monsieur, as 
you seem to be a person of education, 3'ou no doubt 
know that the law forbids trespassers on enclosed 
property. A hedge is the same as a wall. But the 
state in which that house is left ma3’ well excuse 3’our 
curiosity. I should be onl}' too glad to leave 3’ou free 
to go and come as 3*011 liked there, but charged as I am 
to execute the wishes of the testatrix, I have the honor, 
monsieur, to request that 3’ou do not again enter that 
garden. I m3’self, monsieur, have not, since the read- 
ing of the will, set foot in that house, which, as I have 
alread3* had the honor to tell 3*ou, I hold under the will 
of Madame de Merret. We have only taken account 
of the number of the doors and windows so as to assess 
the taxes which I pay annuall3* from the funds left by 
the late countess for that purpose. Ah, monsieur, that 
will made a great deal of noise in V endome ! ' 

“There the worthy man paused to blow his nose. 

t. 


228 


La Grande Breteche. 


I respected his loquacity, understanding perfectly that 
the testamentary bequest of Madame de Merret had 
been the most important event of his life, the head and 
front of his reputation, his glory, his Restoration. So 
then, I must bid adieu to my beautiful reveries, my 
romances ! I was not so rebellious as to deprive my- 
self of getting the truth, as it were oflScially, out of the 
man of law, so I said, — 

“ ‘ Monsieur, if it is not indiscreet, may I ask the 
reason of this singularity?* 

“At these words a look which expressed the pleas- 
ure of a man who rides a hobby passed over Monsieur 
Regnault’s face. He pulled up his shirt-collar with a 
certain conceit, took out his snuff-box, opened it, 
offered it to me, and on my refusal, took a strong 
pinch himself. He was happy. A man who hasn’t 
a hobb}’ doesn’t know how much can be got out of 
life. A hobby is the exact medium between a passion 
and a monomania. At that moment I understood 
Sterne’s fine expression to its fullest extent, and I 
formed a complete idea of the joy with which m}^ Uncle 
Toby — Trim assisting — bestrode his war-horse. 

“‘Monsieur,’ said Monsieur Regnault, ‘I was for- 
merly head-clerk to Maitre Roguin in Paris. An ex- 
cellent lawyer’s office of which you have doubtless 
heard? No ! And yet a most unfortunate failure made 
it, I may say, celebrated. Not having the means to 


La Grande Breteche, 


229 


bu}' a practice in Paris at the price to which they rose 
in 1816, I came here to Vendome, where I have re- 
lations, — among them a rich aunt, who gave me her 
daughter in marriage/ 

“ Here he made a slight pause, and then resumed : — 

“‘Three months after m 3 " appointment was ratified 
b 3 ’ Monseigneur the Keeper of the Seals, I was sent for 
one evening just as I was going to bed (I was not then 
married) b}" Madame la Comtesse de Merret, then 
living in her chateau at Merret. Her lad 3 '’s-maid, an 
excellent girl who is now serving in this inn, was at 
the door with the countess’s carriage. Ah ! one mo- 
ment ! I ought to tell 3 ’ou, monsieur, that Monsieur 
le Comte de Merret had gone to die in Paris about 
two months before I came here. He died a miserable 
death from excesses of all kinds, to which he gave him- 
self up. You understand? Well, the day of his de- 
parture Madame la Comtesse left La Grande Breteche, 
and dismantled it. The}- do say that she even burned 
the furniture, and the carpets, and all appurtenances 
whatsoever and wheresoever contained on the premises 
leased to the said — Ah! beg pardon ; what am I say- 
ing? I thought I was dictating a lease. Well, monsieur, 
she burned everything, they say, in the meadow at 
Merret. Were 3 ’ou ever at Merret, monsieur?’ 

“ Not waiting for me to speak, he answered for me : 
‘No. Ah! it is a fine spot? For three months, or 


230 


La Grande Breteche. 


thereabouts,* he continued, nodding his head, ‘ Mon- 
sieur le Comte and Madame la Comtesse had been 
living at La Grande Breteche in a very singular way. 
They admitted no one to the house ; madame lived on 
the ground-floor, and monsieur on the first floor. After 
Madame la Comtesse was left alone she never went to 
church. Later, in her own chateau she refused to see 
the friends who came to visit her. She changed greatly 
after she left La Grande Breteche and came to Merret 
That dear woman (I say dear, though I never saw her 
but once, because she gave me this diamond), — 
that good lady was very ill ; no doubt she had given 
up all hope of recover}*, for she died without calling 
in a doctor ; in fact, some of our ladies thought she 
was not quite right in her mind. Consequently, mon- 
sieur, my curiosity was greatly excited when I learned 
that Madame de Merret needed m3" services ; and I 
was not the only one deeply interested ; that very 
night, though it was late, the whole town knew I had 
gone to Merret.* 

“ The good man paused a moment to arrange his 
facts, and then continued : ‘ The lady’s maid answered 
rather vaguely the questions which I put to her as we 
drove along; she did, however, tell me that her mis- 
tress had received the last sacraments that day from 
the curate of Merret, and that she was not likely to 
live through the night. I reached the chateau about 


La Grande Breteche, 


231 


eleven o’clock. I went up the grand staircase. After 
passing through a number of dark and lo% rooms, 
horribl}^ cold and damp, I entered the state bedroom 
where Madame la Comtesse was lying. In conse- 
quence of the many stories that were told about this 
lady (really, monsieur, I should never end if I related 
all of them) I expected to find her a fascinating co- 
quette. Would 3'ou believe it, I could scarce!}' see her 
at all in the huge bed in which she la}'. It is true that 
the only light in that vast room, with friezes of the old 
style powdered with dust enough to make you sneeze on 
merely looking at them, was one Argand lamp. Ah ! 
but you say you have never been at Merret. Well, 
monsieur, the bed was one of those old-time beds with 
a high tester covered with flowered chintz. A little 
night-table stood by the bed, and on it I noticed a copy 
of the “ Imitation of Christ.” 

“‘Allow me a parenthesis,’ he said, interrupting 
himself. ‘ I bought that book subsequently, also the 
lamp, and presented them to my wife. In the room 
was a large sofa for the woman who was taking care of 
Madame de Merret, and two chairs. That was all. No 
fire. The whole would not have made ten lines of an 
inventory. Ah ! my dear monsieur, could you have 
seen her as I saw her then, in that vast room hung with 
brown tapestry, you would have imagined you were in 
the pages of a novel. It was glacial, — better than that, 


232 


La Grande Breteche, 


funereal,’ added the worth}’’ man, raising his arm the- 
atrically and making a pause. Presently he resumed : 

“ ‘By dint of peering round and coming close to the 
bed I at length saw Madame de Merret, thanks to the 
lamp which happened to shine on the pillows. Her face 
was as yellow as wax, and looked like two hands joined 
together. Madame la Comtesse wore a lace cap, which, 
however, allowed me to see her fine hair, white as snow. 
She was sitting up in the bed, but apparently did so 
with difficulty. Her large black eyes, sunken no doubt 
with fever, and almost lifeless, hardl}^ moved beneath the 
bones where the eyebrows usually grow. Her forehead 
was damp. Her fieshless hands were like bones cov- 
ered with thin skin ; the veins and muscles could all be 
seen. She must once have been very handsome, but now 
I was seized with — I couldn’t tell you what feeling, as 
I looked at her. Those who buried her said afterwards 
that no living creature had ever been as wasted as she 
without dying. Well, it was awful to see. Some mor- 
tal disease had eaten up that woman till there was 
nothing left of her but a phantom. Her lips, of a pale 
violet, seemed not to move when she spoke. Though 
my profession had familiarized me with such scenes, 
in bringing me often to the bedside of the d3’ing, to 
receive their last wishes, I must say that the tears and 
the anguish of families and friends which I have wit- 
nessed were as nothing compared to this solitary 


La Grande Breteche, 


233 


'woman in that vast building. I did not hear the slight- 
est noise, I did not see the movement which the breath- 
ing of the d3’ing woman would naturall}' give to the 
sheet that covered her ; I myself remained motionless, 
looking at her in a sort of stupor. Indeed, I fancy I 
am there still. At last her large eyes moved ; she 
tried to lift her right hand, which fell back upon the 
bed ; then these words issued from her lips like a 
breath, for her voice was no longer a voice, — 

“ ‘ “I have awaited 3’ou with impatience.” 

• “ ‘ Her cheeks colored. The effort to speak was 
great. The old woman who was watching her here 
rose and whispered in m3" ear : ‘ ‘ Don’t speak ; Madame 
la Comtesse is past hearing the slightest sound ; you 
would onlj" agitate her.” 1 sat down. A few moments 
later Madame de Merret collected all her remaining 
strength to move her right arm and put it, not without 
great difficult}^, under her bolster. She paused an in- 
stant; then she made a last effort and withdrew her 
hand which now held a sealed paper. Great drops of 
sweat rolled from her forehead. 

44 4 u I give 3"ou my will,” she said. “ Oh, my 
God ! Oh ! ” 

“ ‘That was all. She seized a crucifix which lay on 
her bed, pressed it to her lips and died. The expression 
of her fixed eyes still makes me shudder wlien I think 
of it. I brought awa}" the will. When it was opened 


234 


La Grande BretecTie. 


I found that Madame de Merret had appointed me her 
executor. She bequeathed her whole property to the 
hospital of Venddme, save and excepting certain be- 
quests. The following disposition was made of La 
Grande Breteche. I was directed to leave it in the 
state in which it was at the time of her death for a 
period of fifty years from the date of her decease ; I 
was to forbid all access to it, by any and every one, no 
matter who ; to make no repairs, and to put by from 
her estate a 3"early sum to pay watchers, if they were 
necessary, to insure the faithful execution of these 
intentions. At the expiration of that time the estate 
was, if the testatrix’s will had been carried out in all 
particulars, to belong to m}" heirs (because, as mon- 
sieur is doubtless well aware, notaries are forbidden by 
law to receive legacies) ; if otherwise, then La Grande 
Breteche was to go to whoever might establish a right 
to it, but on condition of fulfilling certain orders con- 
tained in a codicil annexed to the will and not to be 
opened until the expiration of the fifty years. The will 
has never been attacked, consequently — ’ 

“ Here the oblong notaiy, without finishing his sen- 
tence, looked at me triumphantl3^ I made him perfectly 
happy with a few compliments. 

“‘Monsieur,’ I said, in conclusion, ‘you have so 
deeply impressed that scene upon me that I seem to 
set^ the dying woman, whiter than the sheets ; those 


La Grande Breteche, 


235 


glittering eyes horrify me ; I shall dream of her all 
night. But 3’ou must have formed some conjectures as 
to the motive of that extraordinary will.’ 

“ ‘ Monsieur/ he replied, with comical reserve, ‘ I 
never permit myself to judge of the motives of those 
who honor me with the gift of a diamond.’ 

“ However, I managed to unloose the tongue of the 
scrupulous notary so far that he told me, not without 
long digressions, certain opinions on the matter emanat- 
ing from the wise-heads of both sexes whose judgments 
made the social law of Venddme. But these opinions 
and observations were so contradictor}’, so diffuse, 
that I well-nigh went to sleep in spite of the interest I 
felt in this authentic story. The heavy manner and 
monotonous accent of the notary, who was no doubt in 
the habit of listening to himself and making his clients 
and compatriots listen to him, triumphed over my curi- 
osity. Happil}", he did at last go away. 

“ ‘ Ha, ha! monsieur,’ he said to me at the head of 
the stairs, ‘ many persons would like to live their forty- 
five 3’ears longer, but, one moment I ’ — here he laid the 
forefinger of his right hand on his nose as if he meant 
to say. Now pa}’ attention to this ! — ‘in order to do 
that, to do that^ they ought to skip the sixties.’ 

“ I shut my door, the notary’s jest, which he thought 
very witty, having drawn me from my apathy ; then I 
sat down in my armchair and put both feet on the 


236 


La G-rande Bretecht^ 


andirons. I was plunged in a romance a la Radcliffe, 
based on the notarial disclosures of Monsieur Regnault, 
when my door, softly opened by the hand of a woman, 
turned noiselessly on its hinges. 

“ I saw my landlad}’, a jovial, stout woman, with a 
fine, good-humored face, who had missed her true sur- 
roundings ; she was from Flanders, and might have 
stepped out of a picture b}’ Teniers. 

“ ‘ Well, monsieur,' she said, ‘ Monsieur Regnault 
has no doubt recited to you his famous tale of La 
Grande Breteche?' 

“ ‘ Yes, Madame Lepas.' 

“ ‘ What did he tell you?' 

“ I repeated in a few words the dark and chilling 
story of Madame de Merret as imparted to me by the 
notar}". At each sentence my landlady ran out her 
chin and looked at me with the perspicacity of an inn- 
keeper, which combines the instinct of a policeman, tlie 
astuteness of a spy, and the cunning of a shopkeeper. 

“ ‘My dear Madame Lepas,' I added, in conclusion, 
‘ you evidently know more than that. If not, why did 
you come up here to me ? ' 

“ ‘ On the word, now, of an honest woman, just as 
true as my name is Lepas — ' 

“‘Don’t swear, for your eyes are full of the secret. 
You knew Monsieur de Merret. What sort of man 
was he?’ 


La Grande Breteche, 


23T 


“ ‘ Goodness ! Monsieur de Merret? well, j^oii see, he 
was a handsome man, so tall you never could see the 
top of him, — a very worth}" gentleman from Picardy, 
who had, as you may say, a temper of his own ; and 
he knew it. He paid ever}" one in cash so as to have 
no quarrels. But, I tell you, he could be quick. Our 
ladies thought him very pleasant.* 

“ ‘ Because of his temper? ’ I asked. 

“ ‘ Perhaps,’ she replied. ‘ You know, monsieur, a 
man must have something to the fore, as they say, to 
marry a lady like Madame de Merret, who, without 
disparaging others, was the handsomest and the rich- 
est woman in Vendome. She had an income of nearly 
twenty thousand francs. All the town was at the wed- 
ding. The bride was so dainty and captivating, a real 
little jewel of a woman. Ah ! they were a fine couple 
in those days ! ’ 

“ ‘ Was their home a happy one? ’ 

“ ‘ Hum, hum ! yes and no, so far as any one can 
say ; for you know well enough that the like of us 
don’t live hand and glove with the like of them. Ma- 
dame de Merret was a good woman and very charming, 
who no doubt had to bear a good deal from her hus- 
band’s temper ; we all liked her though she was rather 
haughty. Bah ! that was her bringing up, and she was 
born so. When people are noble — don’t you see ? ’ 

“ ‘ Yes, but there must have been some terrible 


2'38 


La Grande Breteche. 


catastrophe, for Monsieur and Madame de Merret to 
separate violently/ 

“‘I never said there was a catastrophe, monsieur; 
I know nothing about it.’ 

“ ‘ Very good ; now I am certain that you know all.’ 

“‘Well, monsieur. I’ll tell you all I do know. 
When I saw Monsieur Regnault coming after you I 
knew he would tell you about Madame de Merret and 
La Grande Breteche ; and that gave me the idea of 
consulting monsieur, who seems to be a gentleman of 
good sense, incapable of betraying a poor woman like 
me, who has never done harm to any one, but who is, 
somehow, troubled in her conscience. I have never 
dared to say a word to the people about here, for 
they are all gossips, with tongues like steel blades. 
And there’s never been a traveller who has staj^ed 
as long as you have, monsieur, to whom I could tell 
all about the fifteen thousand francs — * 

“ ‘ My dear Madame Lepas,’ I replied, tr3'ing to stop 
the flow of words, ‘ if your confidence is of a nature to 
compromise me, I would n’t hear it for worlds.’ 

“ ‘ Oh, don’t be afraid,’ she said, interrupting me. 
‘ You ’ll see — ’ 

“ This haste to tell made me quite certain I was not 
the first to whom my good landlady had communicated 
the secret of which I was to be the sole repositary, so I 
listened. 


La Grande Bretiche. 


239 


“ ‘ Monsieur,’ she said, ‘ when the Eraperor sent the 
Spanish and other prisoners of war to Vendome I lodged 
one of them (at the cost of the government), — a3’oung 
Spaniard on parole. But in spite of his parole he had 
to report every da}’ to the sub-prefect. He was a gran- 
dee of Spain, with a name that ended in os and in dia^ 
like all Spaniards — Bagos de Feredia. I wrote his 
name on the register, and you can see it if you like. 
Oh, he was a handsome young fellow for a Spaniard, 
who, they tell me, are all ugly. He was n’t more than 
five feet two or three inches, but he was well made. 
He had pretty little hands which he took care of — ah, 
you should just have seen him ! He had as many 
brushes for those hands as a woman has for her head. 
He had fine black hair, a fiery eye, a rather copper- 
colored skin, but it was pleasant to look at all the same. 
He wore the finest linen I ever saw on any one, and I 
have lodged princesses, and, among others. General 
Bertrand, the Due and Duchesse d’Abrantes, Monsieur 
Decazes and the King of Spain. He did n’t eat much ; 
but he had such polite manners and was always so ami- 
able that I could n’t find fault with him. Oh ! I did 
really love him, though he never said four words a day 
to me ; if any one spoke to him, he never answered, — 
that’s an oddity those grandees have, a sort of mania, 
so I ’m told. He read his breviary like a priest, and he 
went to mass and to all the services regularly. Wher^ 


240 


La Grande BretecJie, 


do you think he sat? close to the chapel of Madame de 
Merret. But as he took that place the first time he went 
to church nobod}" attached any importance to the fact, 
though it was remembered later. Besides, he never 
took his eyes off his prayer-book, poor young man ! ’ 

“ My jovial landlady paused a moment, overcome 
with her recollections ; then she continued her tale : 

“ ‘ From that time on, monsieur, he used to walk up 
the mountain every evening to the ruins of the castle. 
It was his only amusement, poor man ! and I dare say 
it recalled his own countiy ; they say Spain is all 
mountains. From the first he was alwa3’s late at night 
in coming in. I used to be uneas}’ at never seeing him 
before the stroke of midnight ; but we got accustomed 
to his waj’s and gave him a key to the door, so that we 
did n’t have to sit up. It so happened that one of our 
grooms told us that one evening when he went to bathe 
his horses he thought he saw the grandee in the dis- 
tance, swimming in the river like a fish. When he 
came in I told him he had better take care not to get 
entangled in the sedges ; he seemed annoyed that any 
one had seen him in the water. Well, monsieur, one 
day, or rather, one morning, we did not find him in his 
room ; he had not come in. He never returned. I 
looked about and into everything, and at last I found 
a writing in a table drawer where he had put away fifty 
of those Spanish gold coins called “ portugaise,” which 


La G-rande Breteche, 


241 


bring a hundred francs apiece ; there were also dia- 
monds worth ten thousand francs sealed up in a little 
box. The paper said that in case he should not return 
some day, he bequeathed to us the money and the 
diamonds, with a request to found masses of thanks- 
giving to God for his escape and safety. In those days 
my husband was living, and he did everything he could 
to find the young man. But, it was the queerest thing ! 
he found only the Spaniard’s clothes under a big stone 
in a sort of shed on the banks of the river, on the castle 
side, just opposite to La Grande Breteche. My hus- 
band went so early in the morning that no one saw him. 
He burned the clothes after we had read the letter, and 
gave out, as Comte Feredia requested, that he had fled. 
The sub-prefect sent the whole gendarmerie on his 
traces, but bless your heart! they never caught him. 
Lepas thought the Spaniard had drowned himself. But, 
monsieur, I never thought so. I think he was somehow 
mixed up in Madame de Merret’s trouble ; and I ’ll tell 
you why. Rosalie has told me that her mistress had a 
crucifix she valued so much that she was buried with it, 
and it was made of ebony and silver ; now when Mon- 
sieur de Feredia first came to lodge with us he had just 
such a crucifix, but I soon missed it. Now, monsieur, 
what do 3^ou say? isn’t it true that I need have no 
remorse about those fifteen thousand francs? are not 
thej" rightfully mine?’ 


16 


242 


La Grande Breteche, 


“ ‘ Of course they are. But how is it you have never 
questioned Rosalie ? ^ I said. 

“ ‘ Oh, I have, monsieur ; but I can get nothing out 
of her. That girl is a stone wall. She knows some- 
thing, but there is no making her talk.* 

“ After a few more remarks, my landlady left me, a 
prey to a romantic curiosity, to vague and darkling 
thoughts, to a religious terror that was something like 
the awe which comes upon us when we enter by night 
a gloomy church and see in the distance beneath the 
arches a feeble light ; a formless figure glides before 
us, the sweep of a robe — of priest or woman — is 
heard ; we shudder. La Grande Breteche, with its tall 
grasses, its shuttered windows, its rusty railings, its 
barred gates, its deserted rooms, rose fantastically 
and suddenly before me. I tried to penetrate that 
mysterious dwelling and seek the knot of this most 
solemn histor}", this drama which had killed three 
persons. 

“ Rosalie became to my e3^es the most interesting 
person in Vendome. Examining her, I discovered the 
traces of an ever-present inward thought. In spite of 
the health which bloomed upon her dimpled face, there 
was in her some element of remorse, or of hope ; her 
attitude bespoke a secret, like that of devotees who 
pray with ardor, or that of a girl who has killed her 
child and forever after hears its Gxy, And yet her pos- 


La Grande Breteche* 


243 


tures were naive, and even vulgar ; her silly smile was 
surely not criminal ; you would have judged her inno- 
cent if only by the large neckerchief of blue and red 
squares which covered her vigorous bust, clothed, con- 
fined, and set off by a gown of purple and white stripes. 
‘ No,* thought I ; ‘I will not leave Vendome without 
knowing the history of La Grande Breteche. I ’ll even 
make love to Rosalie, if it is absolutely necessary.’ 

‘ Rosalie ! ’ I said to her one day. 

‘ What is it, monsieur? ’ 

“ ‘ You are not married, are you?’ 

She trembled slight^. 

“‘Oh! when the fancy takes me to be unhappy 
there’ll be no lack of men,’ she said, laughing. 

“She recovered instantly from her emotion, what- 
ever it was ; for all women, from the great lady to the 
chambermaid of an inn, have a self-possession of their 
own. 

“ ‘You are fresh enough and taking enough to please 
a lover,’ I said, watching her. ‘ But tell me, Rosalie, 
why did you take a place at an inn after you left Ma- 
dame de Merret ? Did n’t she leave 3’ou an annuity ? * 

“ ‘ Oh, yes, she did. But, monsieur, my place is the 
best in all Vendome.’ 

“This answer was evidently" what judges and lawj’ers 
call ‘ dilatory.’ Rosalie’s position in this romantic his- 
tory was like that of a square on a checkerboard ; she 


244 


Ija Grande Breteche, 


was at the very centre, as it were, of its truth and its 
interest ; she seemed to me to be tied into the knot of 
it. The last chapter of the tale was in her, and, from 
the moment that I realized this, Rosalie became to me 
an object of attraction. By dint of studying the girl 
I came to find in her, as we do in every woman whom 
we make a principal object of our attention, that she 
had a host of good qualities. She was clean, and 
careful of herself, and therefore handsome. Some two 
or three weeks after the notary's visit I said to her, 
suddenly : ‘ Tell me all you know about Madame de 
Merret. ’ 

“‘Oh, no!' she replied, in a tone of terror, ‘don’t 
ask me that, monsieur.' 

“I persisted in urging her. Her pretty face dark- 
ened, her bright color faded, her eyes lost their inno- 
cent, liquid light. 

“ ‘ Well ! ’ she said, after a pause, ‘if you will have 
it so, I will tell you ; but keep the secret.' 

“ ‘ I ’ll keep it with the faithfulness of a thief, which 
is the most loyal to be found anywhere.’ 

“ ‘ If it is the same to you, monsieur, I 'd rather you 
kept it with 3’our own.’ 

“ Thereupon, she adjusted her neckerchief and posed 
herself to tell the tale ; for it is very certain that an 
attitude of confidence and security is desirable in order 
to make a narration. The best tales are told at special 


La Grande BretecJie, 245 

hours, — like that in which we are now at table. No 
one ever told a story well, standing or fasting. 

“ If I were to reproduce faithfully poor Rosalie’s 
diffuse eloquence, a whole volume would scarce suffice. 
But as the event of which she now gave me a haz}’ 
knowledge falls into place between the facts revealed 
by the garrulity of the notary, and that of Madame 
Lepas, as precisely as the mean terms of an arithmeti- 
cal proposition lie between its two extremes, all I have 
to do is to tell it to j'ou in few words. I therefore 
give a summary of what I heard from Rosalie. 

“The chamber which Madame de Merret occupied 
at La Grande Breteche was on the ground-floor. A 
small closet about four feet in depth was made in the 
wall, and served as a wardrobe. Three months before 
the evening when the facts I am about to relate to 3’ou 
happened, Madame de Merret had been so seriousl}^ 
unwell that her husband left her alone in her room and 
slept himself in a chamber on the first floor. By one of 
those mere chances which it is impossible to foresee, he 
returned, on the evening in question, two hours later 
than usual from the club where he went habituall}* to 
read the papers and talk politics with the inhabitants of 
the town. His wife thought him at home and in bed 
and asleep. But the invasion of France had been the 
subject of a lively discussion ; the game of billiards was 
a heated one ; he had lost fort}" francs, an enormous sum 


246 


La Grande Breteche. 


for Vendome, where ever3’bod3^ hoards his money, and 
where manners and customs are restrained within modest 
limits worth3' of all praise, — which may, perhaps, be 
the source of a certain true happiness which no Parisian 
cares anything at all about. 

“ For some time past Monsieur de Merret had been in 
the habit of asking Rosalie, when he came in, if his 
wife were in bed. Being told, invariably, that she was, 
he at once went to his own room with the contentment 
that comes of confidence and custom. This evening, 
on returning home, he took it into his head to go to 
Madame de Merret’s room and tell her his ill-luck, 
perhaps to be consoled for it. During dinner he had 
noticed that his wife was coquettishly dressed ; and as 
he came from the club the thought crossed his mind 
that she was no longer ill, that her convalescence had 
made her lovelier than ever, — a fact he perceived, as 
husbands are wont to perceive things, too late. 

“ Instead of calling Rosalie, who at that moment was 
in the kitchen watching a complicated game of ^ brisque,* 
at which the cook and the coachman were playing, 
Monsieur de Merret went straight to his wife’s room by 
the light of his lantern, which he had placed on the 
first step of the stairwa3\ His step, which was easily 
recognized, resounded under the arches of the corridor. 
J list as he turned the handle of his wife’s door he fan- 
cied he heard the door of the closet, which I mentioned 


I 


La Grande Breteche. 247 

to you, shut ; but when he entered, Madame de Merret 
was alone, standing before the fireplace. The husband 
thought to himself that Rosalie must be in the closet ; 
and 3'et a suspicion, which sounded in his ears like 
the ringing of bells, made him distrustful. He looked 
at his wife, and fancied he saw something wild and 
troubled in her eyes. 

“‘You are late in coming home/ she said. That 
voice, usually so pure and gracious, seemed to him 
slightly changed. 

“Monsieur de Merret made no answer, for at that 
moment Rosalie entered the room. Her appearance 
was a thunderbolt to him. He walked up and down 
the room with his arms crossed, going from one win- 
dow to another with a uniform movement. 

“ ‘ Have 3^ou heard anything to trouble you?’ asked 
his wife, timidl}^, while Rosalie was undressing her. 
He made no answer. 

“ ‘ You can leave the room,’ said Madame de Merret 
to the maid. ‘ I will arrange m3" hair myself.’ 

“ She guessed some misfortune at the mere sight of 
her husband’s face, and wished to be alone with 
him. 

“ When Rosalie was gone, or supposed to be gone, 
for she went no further than the corridor. Monsieur de 
Merret came to his wife and stood before her. Then 
he said, coldl3" : 


248 


La Grande Bret^che. 


“ ‘ Madame, there is some one in your closet.* 

“ She looked at her husband with a calm air, and 
answered, ‘ No, monsieur.* 

“ That ‘ no * agonized Monsieur de Merret, for he 
did not believe it. And yet his wife had never seemed 
purer nor more saintly than she did at that moment. 
He rose and went towards the closet to open the door ; 
Madame de Merret took him by the hand and stopped 
him ; she looked at him with a sad air and said, in 
a voice that was strangely shaken : ‘ If you find no 
one, remember that all is over between us.* 

“ The infinite dignity of his wife’s demeanor restored 
her husband’s respect for her, and suddenly inspired 
him with one of those resolutions which need some 
wider field to become immortal. 

“‘No, Josephine,’ he said, ‘I will not look there. 
In either case we should be separated forever. Listen 
to me : I know the purity of your soul, I know that you 
lead a saintly life ; you would not commit a mortal sin 
to save yourself from death.’ 

“At these words, Madame de Merret looked at her 
husband with a haggard eye. 

“ ‘ Here is your crucifix,* he went on. ‘ Swear to me 
before God that there is no one in that closet and I will 
believe you ; I will not open that door.* 

“Madame de Merret took the crucifix and said ‘I 
swear it.* 


La G-rande Bretiche, 


249 


“ ‘ Louder ! ’ said her husband ; ^ repeat after me, — I 
swear before God that there is no person in that 
closet.’ 

“ She repeated the words composedly. 

“ ‘That is well,’ said Monsieur de Merret, coldly. 
After a moment’s silence he added, examining the 
ebony crucifix inlaid with silver, ‘That is a beautiful 
thing; I did not know you possessed it; it is very 
artistically wrought.’ 

“ ‘ I found it at Duvivier’s,’ she replied ; ‘ he bought 
it of a Spanish monk when those prisoners -of- war 
passed through Vendome last year.’ 

“ ‘ Ah ! ’ said Monsieur de Merret, replacing the 
crucifix on the wall. He rang the bell. Rosalie was 
not long in answering it. Monsieur de Merret went 
quickly up to her, took her into the recess of a window 
on the garden side, and said to her in a low voice : — 

“ ‘ I am told that Gorenfiot wants to marry you, and 
that poverty alone prevents it, for you have told him 
you will not be his wife until he is a master-mason. Is 
that so ? ’ 

“ ‘ Yes, monsieur.’ 

“ ‘ Well, go and find him ; tell him to come here at 
once and bring his trowel and other tools. Take care 
not to wake any one at his house but himself ; he will 
soon have enough money to satisfy 3’ou, No talking to 
any one when 3’ou leave this room, mind, or — ’ 


250 


La Grande Breteche, 


“ He frowned. Rosalie left the room. He called her 
back ; ‘ Here, take my pass-ke^^,’ he said. 

“ Monsieur de Merret, who had kept his wife in view 
while giving these orders, now sat down beside her 
before the fire and began to tell her of his game of 
billiards, and the political discussions at the club. 
When Rosalie returned she found Monsieur and Ma- 
dame de Merret talking amicabl3% 

“The master had latel}’ had the ceilings of all the 
reception rooms on the lower fioor restored. Plaster 
is very scarce at Venddme, and the carriage of it 
makes it expensive. Monsieur de Merret had there- 
fore ordered an ample quantity for his own wants, 
knowing that he could readily finds bu^^ers for what 
was left. This circumstance inspired the idea that 
now possessed him. 

“ ‘ Monsieur, Gorenfiot has come,’ said Rosalie. 

“ ‘ Bring him in,’ said her master. 

“ Madame de Merret turned slightly pale when she 
saw the mason. 

“‘Gorenfiot,’ said her husband, ‘fetch some bricks 
from the coach-house, — enough to wall up that door ; 
use the plaster that was left over, to cover the wall.’ 

“Then he called Rosalie and the mason to the end 
of the room, and, speaking in a low voice, added, 
‘ Listen to me, Gorenfiot ; after you have done this work 
you will sleep in the house ; and to-morrow morning 


La Grande Breteche, 


251 


I will give you a passport into a foreign country, and 
six thousand francs for the journey. Go through Paris 
where I will meet j^ou. There, I will secure to 3’ou 
legally another six thousand francs, to be paid to you at 
the end of ten 3’ears if 3'ou still remain out of France. 
For this sum, I demand absolute silence on what you 
see and do this night. As for you, Rosalie, I give you 
a dowry of ten thousand francs, on condition that 
3^ou marry Gorenflot, and keep silence, if not — * 

“‘Rosalie,* said Madame de Merret, ‘come and 
brush m3' hair.* 

“ The husband walked up and down the room, watch- 
ing the door, the mason, and his wife, but without 
allowing the least distrust or misgiving to appear in 
his manner. Gorenflot’s work made some noise ; un- 
der cover of it Madame de Merret said hastil3' to 
Rosalie, while her husband was at the farther end of 
the room. ‘ A thousand francs annuity if 3’ou tell 
Gorenflot to leave a crevice at the bottom ; * then aloud 
she added, composedl3', ‘ Go and help the mason.* 

“Monsieur and Madame de Merret remained silent 
during the whole time it took Gorenflot to wall up the 
door. The silence was intentional on the part of the 
husband to deprive his wife of all chance of saying 
words with a double meaning which might be heard 
within the closet; with Madame de Merret it was 
either prudence or pride. 


252 


La Grande Breteche. 


“ When the wall was more than half up, the mason^s 
tool broke one of the panes of glass in the closet door ; 
Monsieur de Merret’s back was at that moment turned 
away. The action proved to Madame de Merret that 
Rosalie had spoken to the mason. In that one instant 
she saw the dark face of a man with black hair and 
fiery e3*es. Before her husband turned the poor creat- 
ure had time to make a sign with her head which 
meant ‘ Hope.* 

“By four o’clock, just at dawn, for it was in the 
month of September, the work was done. Monsieur de 
Merret remained that night in his wife’s room. The 
next morning, on rising, he said, carelessl}^ : ‘ Ah ! 
I forgot, I must go to the mayor’s office about that 
passport.’ 

“He put on his hat, made three steps to the 
door, then checked himself, turned back, and took the 
crucifix. 

“ His wife trembled with joy ; ‘ He will go to Duvi- 
vier’s,’ she thought. 

“ The moment her husband had left the house she 
rang for Rosalie. ^ The pick-axe ! ’ she cried, ‘ the 
pick-axe ! I watched how Gorenflot did it ; we shall 
have time to make a hole and close it again.’ 

“In an instant Rosalie had brought a sort of cleaver, 
and her mistress, with a fury no words can describe, 
began to demolish the wall. She had knocked away 


La Grande Breteche. 


253 


a few bricks, and was drawing back to strike a still 
more vigorous blow with all her strength, when she 
saw her husband behind her. She fainted. 

“ ‘ Put madame on her bed,’ said her husband, coldly. 

“Foreseeing what would happen, he had laid this 
trap for his wife ; he had written to the ma3'Or, and 
sent for Duvivier. The jeweller arrived just as the 
room had been again put in order. 

“ ‘ Duvivier,’ said Monsieur de Merret, ‘ I think 3’ou 
bought some crucifixes of those Spaniards who were 
here last 3’ear?’ 

“ ‘ No, monsieur, I did not.’ 

“ ‘ Ver3’ good ; thank 3’on,* hp said, with a tigerish 
glance at his wife. ‘ Jean,’ he added to the footman, 
‘ serve m3^ meals in Madame de Merret’s bedroom ; she 
is ver3’ ill, and I shall not leave her till she recovers.’ 

“For twenty da3’s that man remained beside his 
wife. During the first hours, when sounds were heard 
behind the walled door, and Josephine tried to implore 
merc3^ for the dying stranger, he answered, without 
allowing her to utter a word : — 

“ ‘ You swore upon the cross that no one was there.’ ” 

As the tale ended the women rose from table, and 
the spell under which Bianchon had held them was 
broken. Nevertheless, several of them w'ere conscious 
of a cold chill as the3^ recalled the last words. 



HI 



THE PURSE. 


To SOFKA : 

Have you ever remarked, Mademoiselle, that when the 
painters and sculptors of the middle ages placed two figures 
in adoration beside some glorious saint they have always 
given them a filial resemblance ? 

When you see your name among those dear to me, under 
whose protection I place my books, remember this likeness 
and you will find here not so much a homage as an expression 
of the fraternal affection felt for you by 

Your servant, De Balzac. 

For souls easily moved to joyous feelings there comes 
a delightful moment when night is not yet and day is 
no more ; the twilight casts its soft tones or its fantastic 
reflections over everything, and invites to a revery 
which blends vaguely with the play of light and shadow. 
The silence that nearly always reigns at such a moment 
renders it particularly dear to artists, who then gather 
up their thoughts, stand back a little from their crea- 
tions, at which they can see to work no longer, and 


256 


The Purse, 


judge them in the intoxication of a subject the esoteric 
meaning of which then blazes forth to the inner eyes of 
genius. He who has never stood pensive beside a friend 
at that dream}", poetic moment will have difficulty in 
comprehending its unspeakable benefits. Thanks to 
the half-light, the chiaroscuro^ all the material de- 
ceptions employed by art to simulate truth disappear. 
If a picture is the thing concerned, the persons it repre- 
sents seem to speak and move ; the shadow is reall}" 
shadow, the light is da}", the flesh is living, the eyes 
turn, the blood flows in the veins, and the silks shimmer. 
At that hour illusion reigns unchallenged ; perhaps it 
only rises at night-fall ! Indeed, illusion is to thought 
a sort of night which we decorate with dreams. Then 
it is that she spreads her wings and bears the soul to 
the world of fantasy, — a world teeming with voluptuous 
caprices, where the artist forgets the actual world, for- 
gets yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, all, even his dis- 
tresses, the happy as well as the bitter ones. 

At that magic hour a young painter, a man of talent, 
who saw nought in art but art itself, was perched on a 
double ladder which he used for the purpose of painting 
a very large picture, now nearly finished. There, criti- 
cising himself and admiring himself in perfect good 
faith, he was lost in one of those meditations which rav- 
ish the soul, enlarge it, caress it, and console it. His 
revery no doubt lasted long. Night came. Whether he 


The Purse. 


257 


tried to come down his ladder, or whether, thinking he 
was on the ground, he made some imprudent movement, 
he was unable to remember, but at an}^ rate he fell, his 
head struck a stool, he lost consciousness and lay for a 
time, but how long he did not know, without moving. 

A soft voice drew him from the sort of stupor in which 
he was plunged. When he opened his eyes a bright 
light made him close them again ; but through the veil 
that wrapped his senses he heard the murmur of 
women’s voices, and felt two young and timid hands 
about his head. He soon recovered consciousness and 
perceived, by the light of one of those old-fashioned 
lamps called “double air-currents,” the head of the 
loveliest young girl he had ever seen, — one of those 
heads which are often thought artistic fancies, but which 
for him suddenly realized the noble ideal which each 
artist creates for himself, and from which his genius 
proceeds. The face of the unknown maiden belonged, 
if we may say so, to the school of Prudhon, and it also 
possessed the poetic charm which Girodet has given to 
his imaginary visions. The delightful coolness of the 
temples, the evenness of the eyebrows, the purity of 
the outlines, the virginity strongly imprinted on that 
countenance, made the young girl a perfected being. 

Her clothes, though simple and neat, bespoke neither 
wealth nor poverty. When the painter regained pos- 
session of himself, he expressed his admiration in a 

17 


258 


The Purse, 


look of surprise as he stammered his thanks. He felt 
his forehead pressed b}" a handkerchief, and he recog- 
nized, in spite of the peculiar odor of an atelier, the*^ 
strong fumes of hartshorn, used, no doubt, to bring 
him to himself. Next he noticed an old lady, like a 
countess of the old regime, who held the lamp and was 
advising her companion. 

“ Monsieur,” replied the young girl to one of the 
painter’s questions asked during the moment when he 
was still half-unconscious, “ m3’ mother and I heard the 
noise of 3^our fall on the floor and we thought we also 
heard a groan. The silence which succeeded 3’our fall 
alarmed us and w’e hastened to come up to 3’ou. 
Finding the kej' in the door we fortunatelj’ ventured 
to come in. We found you lying on the floor uncon- 
scious. My mother obtained what was necessar3^ to 
bring you to and to stanch the blood. You are hurt 
in the forehead; there, do 3’ou feel it?” 

“ Yes, now I do,” he said. 

“It is a mere nothing,” said the old mother, “ for- 
tunatel3’ your fall was broken bj’ that lay-figure.” 

“I feel much better,” said the painter; “all I 
want is a carriage to take me home. The porter can 
fetch it.” 

He tried to reiterate his thanks to the two ladies, but 
at every sentence the mother interrupted him, saying : 
“ To-morrow, monsieur, put on blisters or apply 


The Purse, 259 

leeches ; drink a few cups of some restorative ; take 
care of yourself, — falls are dangerous.” 

The young girl glanced shyly at the painter, and 
around the studio. Her look and demeanor were those 
of perfect propriety, and her eyes seemed to express, 
with a spontaneit}’ that was full of grace, the interest 
that women take in whatever troubles men. These 
unknown ladies appeared to ignore the works of the 
painter in presence of the suffering man. When he 
had reassured them as to his condition they left the 
room, after examining him with a solicitude that was 
devoid of either exaggeration or familiarity, and with- 
out asking any indiscreet questions, or seeking to in- 
spire him with a wish to know them. Their conduct 
was marked with every sign of delicacy and good taste. 
At first their noble and simple manners produced but 
little effect upon the painter, but later, when he recalled 
the circumstances, he was greatly struck by them. 

Reaching the fioor below that on which the studio 
was situated, the old lady exclaimed, gently, “Ade- 
laide, you left the door open ! ” 

“It was to succor me,” replied the painter, with a 
smile of gratitude. 

“ Mamma, you came down just now,” said the young 
girl, blushing. 

“ Shall we light j'ou down? ” said the mother to the 
painter ; “ the stairway is dark.” 


260 


The Purse, 


“ Oh, thank you, madame, but I feel much better.” 

“ Hold by the baluster.” 

The two women stood on the landing to light the 
young man, listening to the sound of his steps. 

To explain all that made this scene piquant and un- 
expected to the painter, we must add that he had only 
lately removed his studio to the attic of this house, 
which stood at the darkest and muddiest part of the 
rue de Suresnes, nearly opposite to the church of the 
Madeleine, a few steps from his apartments, which 
were in the rue des Champs ^llj^sees. The celebrity 
his talent had won for him made him dear to France, 
and he was just beginning to no longer feel the troubles 
of want, and to enjoy, as he said, his last miseries. 
Instead of going to his work in a studio be3^ond the 
barrier, the modest price of which had hitherto been in 
keeping with the modesty* of his earnings, he now satis- 
fied a desire, of dailj’ growth, to avoid the long walk 
and the loss of time which had now become a thing of 
the utmost value. 

No one in the world could have inspired deeper in- 
terest that Hippol3'te Schinner, if he had onl3’ con- 
sented to be known ; but he was not one of those who 
readily confide the secrets of their heart. He was the 
idol of a poor mother who had brought him up at a 
cost of stern privations. Mademoiselle Schinner, the 
daughter of an Alsatian farmer, was not married. 


Tlie Purse, 


261 


Her tender soul had once been cruelly wounded by a 
wealthy man who boasted of little delicacy in love. 
The fatal day when, in the glow of 3’outh and beaut}’, 
in the gloiy of her life, she endured at the cost of all 
her beautiful illusions, and of her heart itself, the dis- 
enchantment which comes to us so slowly and yet so 
fast, — for we will not believe in evil until too late, and 
then it seems to come too rapidly, — that da}’ was to her 
a whole century of reflection, and it was also a day of 
religious thoughts and resignation. She refused the 
alms of the man who had betrayed her ; she renounced 
tlie world, and made an honor of her fault. She gave 
herself up to maternal love, enjoying in exchange for 
the social enjoyments to which she had bid farewell, 
its fullest delights. She lived by her labor, and found 
her wealth in her son ; and the day came, the hour 
came which repaid her for the long, slow sacrifices of 
her indigence. At the last Exhibition her son had re- 
ceived tlie cross of the Legion of honor. The news- 
papers, unanimous in favor of a hitherto ignored talent, 
rang with praises that were now sincere. Artists them- 
selves recognized Schinner as a master, and the dealers 
were ready to cover his canvases with gold. 

At twenty-five years of age Hippolyte Schinner, to 
whom his mother had transmitted her woman’s soul, 
fully recognized his position in the world. Wishing to 
give his mother the pleasures that society had so long 


262 


The Purse. 


■withdrawn from her, he lived for her onh’, — hoping 
to see her some daj*, through the power of his fame 
and fortune, happy, rich, respected, and surrounded 
by celebrated men. 

Schinner had therefore chosen his friends among the 
most honorable and distinguished men of his own age. 
Hard to satisfy in his choice, he wished to gain a posi- 
tion even higher than that his talents gave him. By 
forcing him to live in solitude (that mother of great 
thoughts) the toil to which he had vowed himself from 
his 3’outh up had kept him true to the noble beliefs 
which adorn the earlier years of life. His adolescent 
soul had lost none of the many forms of chastitj’ which 
make a 3'oung man a being apart, a being whose heart 
abounds in felicity, in poes}", in virgin hopes, — feeble 
to the e3’es of worn-out men, but deep because they 
are simple. He was endowed b}’ nature with the 
gentle, courteous manners, which are those of the heart, 
and which charm even those who are not able to 
comprehend them. He was well made. His voice, 
which echoed his soul, roused noble sentiments in the 
souls of others, and bore testimony b3’ a certain candor 
in its tones to his innate modest3". Those who saw 
him felt drawn to him 133" one of those moral attrac- 
tions which, happily, scientific men cannot analyze ; if 
they could they would find some phenomena of gal- 
vanism, or the flow of heaven knows what fluid, and 


The Purse, 


263 


formulate our feelings in proportions of ox3'gen and 
electricitj". 

These details may perhaps enlighten persons who are 
bold b}" nature, and also men with good cravats, as to 
why Hippolyte Schinner, in the absence of the porter, 
whom he had sent to the rue de la Madeleine for a hack- 
ne3’-coach, did not ask the porter’s wife any question 
as to the two ladies whose kindness of heart accident 
had revealed to him. But though he answered merel3^ 
3*es or no to the questions, natural enough under the 
circumstances, which the woman put to him on his 
accident, and on the assistance rendered to him by the 
occupants of the fourth floor, he could not prevent her 
from obeying the instincts of her race. She spoke of 
the two ladies in the interests of her own policy and 
according to the subterranean judgment of a porter’s 
lodge. 

“Ah!” she said, “that must have been Mademoi- 
selle Leseigneur and her mother ; the3" have lived here 
the last four 3’ears. We can’t make out what those 
ladies do. In the morning (but onl3" till twelve o’clock) 
an old charwoman, nearly deaf, and who does n’t talk 
an3" more than a stone wall, comes to help them ; in 
the evening two or three old gentlemen, decorated, like 
3’ou, monsieur, — one of them keeps a carriage and ser- 
vants, and people do say he has sixty thousand francs 
a year, — well, they spend the evening here and often 


264 


The Purse. 


sta}' ver}^ late. The ladies are very quiet tenants, like 
you, monsieur ; and economical ! — they live on nothing ; 
as soon as the}’ get a letter they pay their rent. It is 
queer, monsieur, but the mother has n’t the same name 
as the daughter. Ah ! but when the}^ go to walk in the 
Tuileries mademoiselle is dazzling, and often young 
gentlemen follow her home, but she has the door shut 
in their faces, — and she is right ; for the proprietor 
would never allow — ” 

The coach having arrived, Hippolyte heard no more 
and went home. His mother, to whom he related his 
adventure, dressed his wound and would not let him 
go back to the studio the next day. Consultation was 
had, divers prescriptions were ordered, and Hippolyte 
was kept at home three days. During this seclusion, 
his unoccupied imagination recalled to him in vivid 
fragments the details of the scene that followed his 
swoon. The profile of the 3’oung girl was deeply cut 
upon the shadowy background of his inner sight ; 
again he saw the faded face of the mother and felt 
Adelaide’s soft hands ; he remembered a gesture he had 
scarcely noticed at the time, but now its exquisite grace 
was thrown into relief by memor}’ ; then an attitude or 
the tones of a melodious voice, made more melodious 
b}^ recollection, suddenly reappeared, like things that 
are thrown to the bottom of a river and return to the 
surface. 


The Purse. 


265 


So the first day on which he was able to go to work 
he went early to his studio ; but the visit which he had, 
incontestably, the right to make to his neighbors was 
the real reason of his haste ; his pictures were forgotten. 
The moment a passion bursts its swaddling-clothes it 
finds inexplicable pleasures known onl^" to those who 
love. Thus there are persons who will know why the 
painter slowly mounted the stairs of the fourth storj’ ; 
they will be in the secret of those rapid pulsations of his 
heart as he came in sight of the brown door of the hum- 
ble apartments occupied by Mademoiselle Leseigneur. 
This young girl, who did not bear the same name as her 
mother, had awakened a thousand sympathies in the 
young painter ; he longed to find in her certain similari- 
ties of position to his own, and he invested her with the 
misfortunes of his own origin. While he worked, Hip- 
polj'te gave himself, complacently, to thoughts of love, 
and he made as much noise as he could, to induce the 
ladies to think of him as much as he thought of them. 
He sta^’ed very late at the studio, and dined there. About 
seven o’clock he went down to call on his neighbors. 

No painter of manners and customs has dared to 
initiate us — restrained, perhaps, by a sense of pro- 
priety — into the trul}" singular interiors of certain 
Parisian homes, into the secret of those dwellings 
whence issue such fresh, such elegant toilets, women so 
brilliant on the outside who nevertheless betray signs 


266 


The Purse. 


of an equivocal fortune. If the painting of such a home 
is here too frankly drawn, if you find it tedious, do not 
blame the description, which forms, as it were, an integ- 
ral part of the history ; for the aspect of the apartments 
occupied by his neighbors had a great infiuence upon 
the hopes and feelings of Hippolyte Schinner. 

The house belonged to one of those proprietors in 
whom there is a pre-existent horror of repairs or im- 
provements, — one of the men who consider their posi- 
tion as house-owners in Paris as their business in life. 
In the grand chain of moral species such men hold the 
middle place between usurers and misers. Optimists 
from self-interest, the}" are all faithful to the statu quo 
of Austria. If 3*ou mention moving a cupboard or a 
door, or making the most necessary of ventilators, their 
eyes glitter, their bile rises, the}" rear like a frightened 
horse. When the wind has knocked over a chimney- 
pot they fall ill of it, and deprive themselves and their 
families of an evening at the Gymnase or the Porte- 
Saint-Martin to pay damages. Hippolyte, who, apropos 
of certain embellishments he wished made to his studio, 
had enjoyed, gratis, the playing of a comic scene by 
Monsieur Molineux, the proprietor, was not at all sur- 
prised by the blackened, soiled colors, the oily tints, 
the spots, and other disagreeable accessories which 
adorned the woodwork. These stigmata of poverty 
are never without a certain poetry to an artist. 


The Purse. 


267 


Mademoiselle Leseigneur herself opened the door. 
Recognizing the young painter she bowed to him ; 
then, at the same moment, with Parisian dexterit}^ 
and that presence of mind which pride affords, she 
turned and shut the door of a glazed partition through 
which Hippolyte might have seen linen hung to dry 
on lines above a cheap stove, an old flock bed, coal, 
charcoal, flatirons, a water-filter, china and glass, and 
all utensils necessary to a small household. Muslin 
curtains, that were sufiSciently clean, carefully con- 
cealed this “ capharnaum,” — a word then familiarly 
applied to such domestic laboratories, ill-lighted by 
narrow windows opening on a court. 

With the rapid glance of an artist Hippolyte had 
seen the furnishing, the character, and the condition 
of this first apartment, which was in fact one room 
cut in two. The respectable half, which answered the 
double purpose of ante-chamber and dining-room, was 
hung with an old 3'ellow paper, and a velvet border, 
manufactured no doubt bj^ R^veillon, the holes and 
the spots of which had been carefully concealed un- 
der wafers. Engravings representing the battles of 
Alexander, b^’ Lebrun, in tarnished frames, decorated 
the walls at equal distances. In the centre of the 
room was a massive mahogany table, old-fashioned in 
shape, and a good deal rubbed at the corners. A 
small stove, with a straight pipe and no elbow, hardly 


268 


The Purse. 


seen, stood before the chimney, the fireplace in which 
was turned into a closet. By way of an odd contrast, 
the chairs, which were of carved mahogany, showed 
the relics of past splendor, but the red leather of the 
seats, the gilt nails, and the gimps showed as many 
wounds as an old sergeant of the Imperial Guard. 
This room served as a museum for a variety of things 
that are only found in certain amphibious households, 
unnameable articles, which belong both to Iuxuit and 
poverty. Among them Hippolyte noticed a spy-glass, 
handsomely ornamented, which hung above the little 
greenish mirror oti the mantel-shelf. To complete the 
oddity of this furniture, a shabby sideboard stood be- 
tween the chimney and the partition, made of common 
pine painted in mahogany, which of all woods is least 
successfully imitated. But the red and slippery floor, 
the shabby bits of carpet before the chairs, and all the 
furniture, shone with the careful rubbing which gives 
its own lustre to old things, and brings out all the 
clearer their dilapidations, their age, and their long 
service. 

The room gave out an indefinable odor resulting from 
the exhalations of the capharnaiim mingled with the 
atmosphere of the dining-room and that of the stair- 
case, though the window was open and the breeze from 
the street stirred the cambric curtains, which were 
carefully arranged to hide the window-frame where 


The Purse, 


269 


preceding tenants had marked their presence by various 
carvings, — a sort of domestic frescoing. 

Adelaide quickly opened the door of the next room, 
into which she ushered the painter with evident pleas- 
ure. Hippol^'te, who had seen the same signs of pov- 
erty in his mother’s home, noticed them now with that 
singular keenness of impression which characterizes the 
first acquisitions of our memory ; and he was able to un- 
derstand, better perhaps than others could have done, 
the details of such an existence. Recognizing the things 
of his childhood, the honest young fellow felt neither 
contempt for the hidden poverty before him, nor pride 
in the luxury he had lately achieved for his mother. 

“ Well, monsieur, I hope j^ou are none the worse 
for your fall?” said the mother, rising from an old- 
fashioned sofa at the corner of the fireplace, and 
offering him a chair. 

“ No, madame. I have come to thank you for the 
good care you gave me ; and especially mademoiselle, 
who heard me fall.” 

While making this speech, full of the adorable 
stupidity which the first agitations of a true love 
produce in the soul, Hippolyte looked at the 3’oung 
girl. Adelaide lighted the lamp with the double cur- 
rent of air, no doubt for the purpose of suppressing a 
tallow candle placed in a large pewter candlestick that 
was covered with drippings from an unusual flow of 


270 


The Purse, 


tallow. She bowed slightly, placed the candlestick on 
the chimney-piece, and sat down near her mother, a 
little behind the painter, so as to look at him at her 
ease, while seemingly engaged in making the lamp 
burn ; for the feeble flame of the double current, aflected 
by the dampness of the tarnished chimnej’, sputtered 
and struggled with an ill-cut, black wick. Observing 
the mirror above the mantel-shelf, Hippolyte promptly 
looked into it to see and admire Adelaide. The little 
scheme of the 3'oung girl served therefore only to 
embarrass them both. 

While talking with Madame Leseigneur, for Hippolyte 
at first gave her that name, he examined the salon, but 
discreetl}^ and with propriet3\ The Egyptian figures of 
the andirons (made of iron) could scarcel3' be seen on 
the hearth full of ashes, where two small sticks of wood 
were tr3flng to meet each other in front of an imitation 
back-log of earthenware. An old Aubusson carpet, 
well-mended and much faded and worn, hardl3’ covered 
the tiled floor, which felt cold to the feet. The walls 
were hung with a reddish paper in the style of a bro- 
cade with buff designs. In the centre of the partition 
opposite to the windows the painter observed an inden- 
tation and cracks in the paper, made by the two doors 
of a folding-bed, where Madame Leseigneur doubtless 
slept, and which was only partly concealed b3’ a sofa 
placed in front of it. Opposite to the chimney, and 


The Purse, 


271 


above a chest of drawers in mahogany, the style of 
which was handsome and in good taste, was the portrait 
of an officer of high rank, which the poor light hardly 
enabled the painter to make out ; but, from what he 
could see of it the thought occurred to him that the 
frightful daub must have been painted in China. The 
red silk curtains to the windows were faded, like the 
coverings of the furniture in this salon with two pur- 
poses. On the marble top of the chest of drawers was 
a valuable tray of malachite, holding a dozen coffee- 
cups, exquisitely painted, and made no doubt at Shvres. 
On the mantel-shelf was the inevitable Empire clock, a 
warrior driving the four horses of a chariot, the twelve 
spokes of the wheel each telling an hour. The wax 
tapers in the candelabra were yellow with smoke, and 
at each end of the shelf was a china vase filled with arti- 
ficial flowers covered with dust and mixed with mosses. 

Hippol^’te noticed a card-table in the centre of the 
room, laid out with new packs of cards. To an ob- 
server there was something indesci:ibably sad in this 
scene of poverty decked out like an old woman who 
tries to give the lie to her face. Most men of common- 
sense would have secretly and immediatel}^ formulated 
to their own minds a problem : were these women 
honor and uprightness itself ; or did they live b3^ cards 
and scheming? But the sight of Adelaide was to a 
3'oung man as pure as Schinner the proof of perfect 


272 


The Purse. 


innocence, and it provided the incolierencies of the 
room with honorable causes. 

“ My dear,” said the old lady to her daughter, “ I 
am cold ; make us a little fire, and give me my shawl.” 

Adelaide went into an adjoining room, where no doubt 
she slept herself, and returned, bringing her mother a 
cashmere shawl which when new must have been of 
great value, but being old, faded, and full of darns, it 
harmonized with the furniture of the room. Madame 
Leseigneur wrapped it artistically about her with the 
cleverness of an old woman who wishes to make 3’ou 
believe in the truth of her words. The 3’onng girl 
darted into the capharnaiim, and reappeared with a 
handful of small wood which she threw into the fire. 

It would be difficult to write down the conversation 
which took place between these three persons. Guided 
by the tact which deprivations and trials endured in 
youth nearly" alwa3'S give a man, Hippol3’te did not 
venture on the slightest allusion to the position of his 
neighbors, though he saw all around him the signs of 
an ill-disguised indigence. The simplest question would 
have been indiscreet, and permissible onl3' in the case 
of an old friend. And yet the painter was deepl3' 
preoccupied by this hidden poverty ; his generous heart 
ached for it ; knowing, however, that all kinds of pit3’, 
even the most sympathetic, ma3" be offensive, he grew 
embarrassed by the conflict that existed between his 


The Purse, 


273 


th(?wghts and his words. The two ladies talked first 
of painting ; for women readilj’ understand the secret 
embarrassments of a first visit ; perhaps they feel 
them, and the nature of their minds gives them the 
art of overcoming them. By questioning the 3’ouug 
man on matters of his profession and his studies 
Adelaide and her mother emboldened him to converse. 
The little nothings of their courteous and lively" conver- 
sation soon led him naturally to remarks and reflections 
which showed the nature of his habits and his mind. 

Sorrows had prematurely withered the face of the old 
lad^", who must once have been handsome, though 
nothing remained of her good looks but the strong 
features and outlines, — in other words, the skeleton of 
a face which still showed infinite delicac}" and much 
charm in the pla^^ of the eyes, which possessed a cer- 
tain expression peculiar to the women of the old court, 
and which no words can define. These delicate and 
subtle points ma}-, however, denote an evil nature ; 
they may mean feminine guile and cunning raised to 
their highest pitch as much as thej^ may, on the other 
hand, reveal the delicacy of a noble soul. In fact, the 
face of a woman is embarrassing to all commonplace 
observers, inasmuch as the difference between frankness 
and duplicit}^ between the genius of intrigue and the 
genius of the heart is, to such observers, imperceptible. 
A man endowed with a penetrating insight can guess 

18 


274 


The Purse. 


the meaning of those fleeting tones produced b}* a line 
more or less curved, a dimple more or less deep, a 
feature more or less rounded or prominent. The un- 
derstanding of such diagnostics lies entirely within the 
domain of intuition, which alone can discover what 
others are seeking to hide. The face of this old lady 
was like the apartment she occupied ; it seemed as 
difficult to know whether the penury of the latter cov- 
ered vices or integritj^ as to decide whether Adelaide’s 
mother was an old coquette accustomed to weigh and 
to calculate and to sell everything, or a loving woman 
full of dignit}’ and noble qualities. 

But at Schinner’s age the first impulse of the heart is 
to believe in goodness. So, as he looked at Adelaide’s 
noble and half-disdainful brow, and into her eyes that 
were full of soul and of thought, he breathed, so to 
speak, the sweet and modest perfumes of virtue. In 
the middle of the conversation he took occasion to say 
something about portraits in general that he might have 
an opportunity to examine the hideous pastel over the 
chimney-piece, the colors of which had faded and in 
some places crumbled off. 

“ No doubt that portrait is valuable to 5’ou, ladies, 
on account of its resemblance,” he said, looking at 
Adelaide, “ for the drawing is horrible.” 

“ It was done in China, in great haste,” said the old 
lady, with some emotion. 


The Pune, 


275 


She looked up at the miserable sketch with that sur- 
render to feeling which the memory of happiness bi ings 
when it falls upon the heart like a blessed dew, to 
whose cool refreshment we delight to abandon our- 
selves^. But in that old face thus raised there were 
also the traces of an eternal grief. At least, that was 
how the painter chose to interpret the attitude and 
face of his hostess, beside whom he now seated him- 
self. 

“ Madame,” he said, “ before long the colors of that 
pastel will have faded out. The portrait will then ex- 
ist only in your memory. You will see there a face 
that is dear to you, but which no one else will be able 
to recognize. Will you permit me to cop\' that picture 
on canvas? It will be far more durable than what 3’ou 
have there on paper. Grant me, as a neighbor, the 
pleasure of doing 3’ou this service. There come times 
when an artist is glad to rest from his more important 
compositions by taking up some other work, and it will 
really be a relief to me to paint that head.” 

The old lady quivered as she heard these words, and 
Adelaide cast upon the artist a thoughtful glance which 
seemed like a gush of the soul itself. Hippolyte wished 
to attach himself to his two neighbors by some tie, and 
to win the right to mingle his life with theirs. His 
offer, addressing itself to the deepest affections of the 
heart, was the only one it was possible for him to 


276 


The Purse, 


make ; it satisfied his artist’s pride, and did not wound 
that of the ladies. Madame Leseigneur accepted it 
without either eagerness or reluctance, but with that 
consciousness of generous souls, who know the extent 
of the obligations such acts fasten on them, and who 
accept them as proofs of respect, and as testimonials 
to their honor. 

“I think,” said the painter, “that that is a naval 
uniform ? ” 

“Yes,” she said, “that of a captain in the navv. 
Monsieur de Rouville, m3’ husband, died at Batavia, 
in consequence of wounds received in a fight with an 
English vessel which he met off the coast of Asia. 
He commanded a fiigate mounting fifty-six guns, but 
the ‘ Revenge ’ w’as a ninet3’-gun ship. The battle 
was unequal, but m3’ husband maintained it bravel3’ 
until night, under cover of which he was able to escape. 
When I returned to France, Bonaparte w’as not yet in 
power, and I was refused a pension. Lately, when I 
applied for one again, the minister told me harshl3’ that 
if the Baron de Rouville had emigrated I should not 
have lost him, and he w’ould now in all probabilit3’ be 
a vice-admiral ; his Excellency finall3’ refused m3’ appli- 
cation under some law of forfeiture. I made the at- 
tempt, to which certain friends urged me, onl3’ for the 
sake of m3’ poor Adelaide. I have alwa3’s felt a repug- 
nance to hold out m3^ hand for mone3" on the ground of 


The Purse, 


277 


a sorrow which deprives a woman of her voice and 
her strength. I do not like these valuations of blood 
irreparably shed.” 

“Dear mother, it always harms you to talk on this 
subject.” 

At these words the Baron ne Leseigneur de Rouville 
bowed her head and said no more. 

“Monsieur,” said the young girl to Hippolyte, “I 
thought that the occupation of a painter was generally 
a rather quiet one?” 

At this question Schinner blushed, recollecting the 
noise he had been making overhead. Adelaide did 
not finish what she seemed about to sa}", and perhaps 
saved him from telling some fib, for she suddenly rose 
at the sound of a carriage driving up to the door. She 
went into her room and returned with two gilt cande- 
labra filled with wax tapers which she quickly lighted. 
Then, without waiting for the bell to ring, she opened 
the door of the first room and placed the lamp on the 
table. The sound of a kiss given and received went to 
the depths of Hippolyte’s heart. The impatience of the 
young man to see who it was that treated Adelaide so 
familiarl}' was not very quickly relieved, for the new 
arrivals held a murmured conversation with the girl, 
which he thought ver}^ long. 

At last, however. Mademoiselle de Rouville reap- 
peared, followed by two men whose dress, physiognomy, 


278 


The Purse. 


and general appearance were a history in themselves. 
The first, who was about sixt}" years of age, wore one 
of those coats invented, I believe, for Louis XVIII., 
then reigning, in which the most difficult of all vestuary 
problems was solved bj^ the genius of a tailor who ought 
to be immortalized. That artist knew, not a doubt of 
it ! the art of transitions, which constituted the genius 
of that period, politically^ so fickle. Surely, it was a rare 
merit to know how to judge, as that tailor did, of his 
epoch ! This coat, which the y’oung men of the present 
day may consider a my th, was neither civil nor mili- 
tary, but might pass at a pinch for either military or 
civil. Embroidered fieurs-de-lis adorned the fiaps be- 
hind. The gold buttons were also fieur-de-lised. On 
the shoulders, two unused eyelet-holes awaited the use- 
less epaulets. These military sy^mptoms were there like 
a petition without a backer. The buttonhole of the old 
man who wore this coat (of the color called “king’s 
blue ”) was adorned with numberless ribbons. He held, 
and no doubt always did hold in his hand his three- 
cornered hat with gold tassels, for the snowy wings of his 
powdered hair showed no signs of the pressure of that 
covering. He looked to be no more than fifty’, and 
seem to enjoy robust health. While there was in him 
every sign of the frank and loyal nature of the old 
emigres^ his appearance denoted also easy and liber- 
tine habits, — the gay passions and the careless joviality 


The Purse. 


279 


of the mousquetaires^ once so celebrated in the annals 
of gallantry. His gestures, his bearing, his manners, 
all proclaimed that he did not intend to change his 
royalism, nor his religion, nor his mode of life. 

A truly fantastic figure followed this ga}’ “ voltigeur 
of Louis XIV.” (that was the nickname given by the 
Bonapartists to these relics of the old monarchy) ; but 
to paint it properly the individual himself ought to be 
the principal figure in a picture in which he is only 
an accessory. Imagine a thin and withered personage, 
dressed like the first figure, and j’et only the refiection 
or the shadow of it. The coat was new on the back of 
the one, and old and faded on that of the other. The 
powder in the hair of the counterpart seemed less white, 
the gold of the fleurs-de-lis less dazzling, the e3’elets 
more vacant, the mind weaker, the vital strength nearer 
its termination, than in the other. In short, he realized 
that sa3’ing of Rivarol about Champcenetz : “He is 
my moonlight.” He was onl3" the echo of the other, a 
faint, dull echo ; between the two there was all the dif- 
ference that there is between the first and last proof 
of a lithograph. The chevalier — for he was a chevalier 
— said nothing, and no one said an3'thing to him. Was 
he a friend, a poor relation, a man who stayed b3' the 
old beau, as a female companion b3^ an old woman? 
Was he a mixture of dog, parrot, and friend? Had he 
saved the fortune, or merely the life of his benefactor? 


280 


The Purse. 


Was he the Trim of another Uncle Tob}"? Elsewhere, 
as well as at Madame de Rouville’s, he excited curiosity. 
Who was there under the Restoration who could recol- 
lect an attachment before the Revolution on the part of 
the Chevalier to his friend’s wife, now dead for over 
twent}^ 3’ears ? 

The personage who seemed to be the less ancient 
of these two relics, advanced gallantl}’ to the Baronne 
de Rouville, kissed her hand, and seated himself beside 
her. The other bowed and sat beside his chief, at a 
distance represented b^’ two chairs. Adelaide came up 
and put her elbows on the back of the chair occupied 
b^" the old gentleman, imitating unconsciously the atti- 
tude which Guerin has given to Dido’s sister in his 
famous picture. Though the familiarity of the old gen- 
tleman was that of a father, it seemed for a moment to 
displease her. 

‘ ‘ What ! do you mean to pout at me ? ” he said. 

Then he cast one of those oblique glances full of 
shrew’dness and perception at Schinner, — a diplomatic 
glance, the expression of which was prudent uneasi- 
ness, the polite curiosit}^ of well-bred people who seem 
to ask on seeing a stranger, “ Is he one of us? ” 

“ This is our neighbor,” said the old ladj^ motioning 
to Hippolyte. “ Monsieur is the celebrated painter, 
whose name 3’ou must know veiy w^ell in spite of your 
indifference to art.” 


The Purse. 


281 


‘ The gentleman smiled at his old friend’s mischievous 
omission of the name, and bowed to the 3’oung man. 

“Yes, indeed,” he said, “ I have heard a great deal 
about his, pictures in the Salon. Talent has many 
privileges, monsieur,” he added, glancing at the artist’s 
red ribbon. “ That distinction which we acquire at the 
cost of our blood and long services, 3’ou obtain 3’oung ; 
but all glories are sisters,” he added, touching the cross 
of Saint-Louis which he wore. 

Hippolyte stammered a few words of thanks and re- 
tired into silence, content to admire with growing en- 
thusiasm the beautiful head of the .young girl who 
charmed him. Soon he forgot in this delightful con- 
templation the evident poverty of her home. To him, 
Adelaide’s face detached itself from a luminous back- 
ground. He answered brief!}’ all questions which were 
addressed to him, and which he fortunatety heard, 
thanks to that singular faculty of the soul which allows 
thought to run double at times. Who does not know 
what it is to continue plunged in a deep meditation, 
pleasurable or sad, to listen to the inward voice, and 
3’et give attention to a conversation or a reading? 
Wonderful dualism, which often helps us to endure bores 
with patience ! Hope, fruitful and smiling, brought him 
a thousand thoughts of happiness ; what need for him 
to dwell on things about him? A child full of trust, he 
thought it shameful to analyze a pleasure. 


282 


The Purse, 


After a certain lapse of time he was aware that the 
old lady and her daughter were playing cards with the 
old gentleman. As to the satellite, he stood behind his 
friend, wholly occupied with the latter’s game, answer- 
ing the mute questions the player made to him by little 
approving grimaces which repeated the interrogative 
motions of the other’s face. 

“ Du Halga, I always lose,” said the gentleman. 

“ You discard too carelessly,” said the baroness. 

“It is three months since I have been able to win a 
single game,” said he. 

“ Monsieur le comte, have 3’ou aces?” asked the old 
lady. 

“Yes, mark one,” he answered. 

“Don’t 3’ou want me to advise 3’ou?” said Adelaide. 

“ No, no ; sta3’ there in front of me ! It would double 
my losses if I could n’t see 3’our face.” 

At last the game ended. The old gentleman drew 
out his purse and threw two louis on the table, not 
without ill-humor. “ Fort3" francs, as true as gold!” 
said he ; “ and, the deuce ! it is eleven o’clock.” 

“ It is eleven o’clock,” repeated the mute personage, 
looking at the painter. 

The 3’oung man, hearing those words rather more 
distinctly than the others, thought it was time to with- 
draw. Returning to the world of common ideas, he 
uttered a few ordinary phrases, bowed to the baroness, 


The Purse, 


283 


her daughter, and the two gentlemen, and went home, 
a prey to the first joys of true love, without trying to 
analyze the little events of this evening. 

The next day the painter was possessed with the most 
violent desire to see Adelaide again. If he had listened 
to his passion he would have gone to his neighbors on 
arriving at his studio at six o’clock in the morning. 
But he still kept his senses suflSciently to wait till the 
afternoon. As soon, however, as he thought he could 
present himself he went down and rang their bell, not 
without much palpitation of the heart, and then, blush- 
ing like a girl, he timidly asked Mademoiselle Le- 
seigneur, who had opened the door, for the portrait of 
Monsieur de Rouville. 

“ But come in,” said Adelaide, who had no doubt 
heard his step on the stairway. 

The painter followed her, abashed and out of counte- 
nance, not knowing what to say, — so stupid did his 
happiness make him. To see Adelaide, to listen to 
the rustle of her gown after longing all the morning to 
be near her, after Jumping up a dozen times and saying, 
“ I will go ! ” and yet not daring to do so, — this, to him, 
was so rich and full a life that such emotions if too pro- 
longed would have exhausted his soul. The heart has 
the singular property of giving an extraordinary value 
to nothings. We know the joy a traveller feels in 
gathering the twig of a plant or a leaf unknown to him, 


284 


The Purse. 


when lie has risked his life in the quest. The nothings 
of love are precious in the same wa3^ 

The old lady was not in the salon. When the young 
girl found herself alone with the painter she brought a 
chair and stood on it to take down the portrait ; but 
perceiving that she could not unhook it without stepping 
on the chest of drawers, she turned to Hippolyte and 
said to him, blushing : — 

“ I am not tall enough. Will you take it down?’* 

A feeling of modesty, shown in the expression of her 
face and the accent of her voice, was the real motive of 
her request ; and the young man, so understanding it, 
gave her one of those intelligent glances which are the 
sweetest language of love. Seeing that the painter 
had guessed her feeling, Adelaide lowered her eyes 
with that impulse of pride which belongs onl}- to virgins. 
Not finding a word to say and feeling almost intimi- 
dated, the painter took down the picture, examined it 
gravely in the light from the window, and then went 
away without saying anything more to Mademoiselle 
Leseigneur than, “ I will return it soon.” 

Each during that rapid moment felt one of those 
mysterious, violent commotions the effects of which in 
the soul can be compared only to those produced by a 
stone when flung into a lake. The soft expansions 
which then are born and succeed each other, indefinable, 
multiplying, unending, agitate the heart as the rings in 


The Purse. 285 

the water widen in the distance from the centre where 
the stone fell. 

Hippolyte returned to his studio, armed with the por- 
trait. His easel was alread3' prepared with a canvas, 
the palette was set with its colors, the brushes cleaned, 
the light arranged. Until his dinner- hour he worked 
at the picture with that eagerness which artists put into 
their caprices. In the evening he again went to Madame 
de Rouville’s and remained from nine to eleven. Except 
for the different topics of conversation, this evening was 
veiy like its predecessor. The old men arrived at the 
same hour, the same game of piquet was pla3’ed, the 
same phrases were repeated, and the sum lost by 
Adelaide’s old friend was the same as that lost the 
night before, — the only change being that Hippolyte, 
grown a little bolder, ventured to talk to Adelaide. 

Eight days passed in this way, during which the 
feelings of the painter and those of the young girl 
underwent those delicious, slow transformations which 
lead 3’oung souls to a perfect understanding. So, day 
by day, Adelaide’s glance as she welcomed her friend 
became more intimate, more trustful, ga3’er, and more 
frank ; her voice, her manners grew more winning, more 
familiar. They both laughed and talked and communi- 
cated their ideas to each other, talking of themselves 
with the naivete of two children, who in the course of 
one da3" can make acquaintance as if the3’ had lived 


286 


The Purse, 


together for three years. Schinner wished to learn 
piquet. Totally ignorant of the game he naturally 
made blunder after blunder ; and, like the old gentle- 
man, he lost nearly every game. 

Without having yet told their love, the two lovers 
knew very well that they belonged to each other. 
Hippolyte delighted in exercising his power over his 
timid friend. Many a concession was made to him by 
Adelaide, who, tender and devoted as she was, was 
easily the dupe of those pretended sulks which the 
least Intelligent of lovers, and the most artless of 
maidens invent, and constantly emplo}", just as spoilt 
children take advantage of the power their mother’s 
love has given them. For instance, all familiarit}^ sud- 
denly ceased between the old count and Adelaide, 
The young girl understood the painter’s gloom, and 
the thoughts hidden beneath the folds of his brow, 
from the harsh tone of the exclamations he made as 
the old man unceremoniously kissed her hands or 
throat. On the other hand, Mademoiselle Leseigneur 
soon began to hold her lover to a strict account of 
his slightest actions. She was so uneasy and so un- 
happy if he did not come ; she knew so well how to 
scold him for his absence, that the painter renounced 
seeing his friends, and went no longer into society. 
Adelaide showed a woman’s jealousy on discovering 
that sometimes, after leaving Madame de Rouville’s 


The Purse, 


287 


at eleven o’clock, the painter made other visits and 
appeared in several of the gayest salons of Paris. 
That sort of life, she told him, was very bad for his 
health, and she asserted, with the profound conviction 
to which the tones, the gesture, the look of those we 
love give such immense power, that “ a man who was 
obliged to give his time and the charms of his mind to 
several women at once, could never be the possessor of 
a really deep affection.” 

So the painter was soon led, as much b}’ the despot- 
ism of his passion as b}^ the exactions of a young girl, 
to live almost wholl}^ in the little home where all things 
pleased him. No love was ever purer or more ardent. 
On either side the same faith, the same mind, the same 
delicacy, made their passion grow apace without the 
help of those sacrifices by which so many persons 
seek to prove their love. Between these lovers there 
existed so constant an interchange of tender feelings 
that they never knew who gave or who received the 
most. A natural, involuntary inclination made the 
union of their souls close indeed. The progress of 
this true feeling was so rapid that two months after 
the accident through which the painter obtained the 
happiness of knowing Adelaide, their lives had be- 
come one and the same life. From early morning the 
young girl, hearing a step above her, said to herself, 
“He is there ! ” When Hippolyte returned home to 


288 


The Purse. 


dine with his mother he never failed to stop on his 
way to greet his friends ; and in the evening he rushed 
to them, at the usual hour, with a lover’s punctuality. 
Thus the most tyrannical of loving women, and the 
heart most ambitious of love could have found no 
fault with the 3’oung painter. Adelaide did indeed 
taste an unalloyed and boundless happiness in finding 
realized to its fullest extent the ideal of which youth 
dreams. 

The old gentleman now came less often ; the jealous 
Hippolyte took his place in the evening at the green 
table, and was equally" unlucky' at cards. But in the 
midst of his happiness, he thought of Madame de 
Rouville’s disastrous position, — for he had seen more 
than one sign of her distress, — and little b}' little an 
importunate thought forced its way into his mind. 
Several times, as he returned home, he had said to 
himself, “What! twenty" francs eveiy evening?” 
The lover dared not admit a suspicion. He spent 
two months on the portrait, and when it was finished, 
varnished, and framed, he thought it one of his best 
works. Madame de Rouville had never mentioned it 
to him ; was it indifference or pride which kept her 
silent? The painter could not explain it to himself. 
He plotted gayl^^ with Adelaide to hang the picture 
in its right place when Madame de Rouville had gone 
out for her usual walk in the Tuileries. 


The Purse. 


289 


The day came, and Adelaide went up, for the first 
time alone, to Hippolj^te’s studio, under pretence of 
seeing the portrait favorably in the light in which it 
was painted. She stood before it silent and motion- 
less, in a delicious contemplation where all the feelings 
of womanhood were blended into one, — and that one, 
boundless admiration for the man she loved. When 
the. painter, uneasy at her silence, leaned forward to 
look at her, she held out her hand to him unable to 
say a word ; but two tears dropped from her eyes. 
Hippolyte took that hand and kissed it, and for a 
moment thej" looked at each other in silence, both 
wishing to avow their love, neither of them daring 
to. As the painter held her hand within his own, 
an equal warmth, an equal throb, told them that their 
hearts were beating with the same pulse. Too deeply 
moved, the young girl gently left her lover’s side, say- 
ing, with a guileless look, “You will make my mother 
very happy.” 

‘ ‘ Your mother — only ? ” he asked. 

“ Oh, as for me, I am too happ}^” she replied. 

The painter bent his head and was silent, frightened 
at the violence of the feeling the tone of those words 
awakened in his heart. Both understood the danger 
of their position, and thej" went downstairs with the 
portrait and put it in its place. That night Hippolyte 
dined for the first time with the baroness, who kissed 
19 


290 


The Purse, 


him with tearful gratitude. In the evening the old 
emigre^ a former comrade of the Baron de Rouville, 
made a special visit to his two friends to announce his 
appointment as a vice-admiral. His terrestrial navi- 
gations across Germany and Russia had been credited 
to him as naval campaigns. When he saw the portrait, 
he shook the painter by the hand, exclaiming : “ Faith ! 
though my old carcass is not worth preserving, I’d 
gladly give five hundred pistoles for anything as like me 
as that is like my friend Rouville.” 

Hearing the proposal, the baroness looked at her friend 
with a smile, and let the signs of a sudden gratitude 
appear on her face. Hippolj te fancied that the old 
admiral intended to pay the price of the two portraits 
in paying for his own ; he was offended, and said 
stiffly, “Monsieur, if I were a portrait-painter I should 
not have painted that one.” 

The admiral bit his lips and began to play. The 
painter sat by Adelaide, who proposed him six kings 
which he accepted. While playing, he noticed in 
Madame de Rouville a degree of eagerness for the 
game which surprised him. The old lady had never 
before manifested such anxiety to win, or looked with 
such pleasure at the admiral’s gold coins. During that 
evening suspicions once more ^ came up in Hippolyte’s 
mind to trouble his happiness and give him a certain 
sense of distrust. Did Madame de -Rouville live by 


The Purse, 


291 


cards? Was she playing at that moment to pay some 
debt, or was she driven to it by some necessity? Per- 
haps her rent was due. That old man seemed too 
worldly-wise to let her win his money for nothing. 
What interest brought him to that poor house, — he, 
a rich man? Why, though formerly so familiar with 
Adelaide, had he lately renounced all familiarities, — 
his right perhaps ? These involuntary thoughts prompted 
Schinner to examine the old man and the baroness, whose 
glances of intelligence and the oblique looks they cast 
on Adelaide and himself displeased him greatlj". 

“ Can it be that they deceive me?” 

To Hippolyte the thought was horrible, withering; 
and he believed it just so far as to let it torture him. 
He resolved to remain after the departure of the two 
old men, so as to confirm his suspicions or get rid of 
them. He drew out his purse at the end of the game, 
intending to pay Adelaide, but his mind was so filled 
with these poignant thoughts that he laid it on the table 
and fell into a revery which lasted several minutes. 
Then, ashamed of his silence, he rose, answered some 
commonplace inquiry of Madame de Rouville’s, going 
close up to her to scrutinize that aged face. He left 
the salon a prey to dreadful uncertainties. After going 
down a few stairs, he recollected his purse and went 
back to get it. “I left my purse,'* he said to Adelaide. 

“ No,” she answered, coloring. 


292 


The Purse, 


“ I thought I left it there,” he said, pointing to the 
card-table. 

Ashamed for both mother and daughter at not finding 
it, he stood looking at them with a bewildered air which 
made them both laugh ; then he turned pale, and felt in 
his waistcoat pockets, stammering, “ I am mistaken, 
I must have it somewhere.” 

At one end of the purse were fifteen louis, at the 
other some small change. The robbery was so flagrant, 
so impudently denied, that Hippolyte had no doubt as 
to the character of his neighbors. He stood still on the 
staircase, for he could hardly go down ; his legs trem- 
bled, his head swam, he perspired, his teeth chattered 
in a cold chill, and he was Jiterally unable to walk in 
the grasp of that cruel convulsion caused by the over- 
throw of all his hopes. At that moment, a crowd of 
apparently trifling circumstances came back into his 
mind, all corroborating his dreadful suspicions ; taken 
together with the certaintj" of this last act, they opened 
his eyes to the character and the life of the two women. 
Had they waited till the portrait was done to steal his 
purse? Thus combined with profit, the theft seemed 
more odious than at first. The painter remembered, 
with anguish, that for the last two or three evenings 
Adelaide had examined, with what seemed girlish curi- 
osit}*, tUe netting of the worn silk, probably to ascertain 
the sum contained in the purse, — making jests that 


The Purse, 


293 


seemed innocent, but were no doubt intended to cover 
the fact that she was watching for the time when the 
purse should be well filled. 

“ The old admiral must have good reasons for not 
marrying her, and the baroness intends that I — ” 

He stopped, and did not continue the thought, for it 
was checked by one more just. 

“ If,” thought he, “ the baroness wished me to marry 
her daughter they would not have robbed me.” 

Then, unable to renounce his illusions, or to abandon 
a love so deeply rooted in his being, he tried to find 
some explanation. “ My purse must have fallen on the 
ground ; perhaps it was under m3’ chair ; perhaps I 
have it, I am so absent-minded ! ” He felt in all his 
pockets with rapid motions,^ — but no, that cursed purse 
was not in them. His cruel memory recalled every 
particular of the fatal facts ; he distinctly saw the purse 
lying on the table. Unable to doubt the theft, he now 
excused Adelaide, saying to himself that no one ought 
to judge the poor and unfortunate too hastily. No 
doubt there was some secret in this apparentl}' de- 
grading action. He would not allow himself to believe 
that that proud, noble face was a lie. Nevertheless, 
that miserable apartment had now lost all those poesies 
of love which once embellished it ; he saw it as it was, 
dirty and faded ; it seemed the outward likeness of an 
inward life without nobleness, unoccupied and vicious. 


294 


The Purse. 


Are not our feelings written, so to speak, on the things 
about us? 

The next morning he rose without having slept. 
The anguish of the heart, that serious moral malady, 
had made great strides into his being. To lose an 
imagined happiness, to renounce an expected future, 
is far more bitter suffering than that caused by the 
ruin of an experienced joy, however great that joy 
may have been. Is not hope better than memory? 
The meditations into which our souls suddenly fall 
are then like a shoreless sea, on whose bosom we 
may float for a moment, though nothing can save 
our love from sinking and perishing. It is a dreadful 
death. Are not our feelings the most vivid and glori- 
ous part of our lives? From such partial death as 
this come those great ravages seen in certain organiza- 
tions that are both delicate and strong, when assailed 
b}' disillusions or by the balking of hopes and passions. 
Thus it was with the young painter. He went out 
early in the morning and walked about in the cool 
. shade of the Tuileries, absorbed in thought, and taking 
no notice of any one. There, by chance, one of his 
young friends met him, a college and atelier comrade, 
with whom he had lived as with a brother. 

“Why, Hippolyte, what’s the matter?” said Fran- 
cois Souchet, a j^oung sculptor who had just obtained 
the grand prix and was soon going to Italy. 


The Purse. 


295 


“ I am very unhappy,” replied Hippolyte, gravely. 

“ Nothing but a love-affair can make 3*011 so. Wealth, 
fame, consideration, — 3^00 have everything else ! ” 
Little by little, the confidences began, and finally 
the pahiter acknowledged his love. When he spoke of 
the rue de Suresnes, and of a young girl living on the 
fourth stor3", “Halt!” cried Souchet, ga3’l3', “that’s 
a little girl I go to see every morning at the Assump- 
tion ; I 'm courting her. Why, my dear fellow, we all 
know her. Her mother is a baroness. Do 3’ou believe 
in baronesses who live on a fourth floor? Brrr I Well, 
well ! you belong to the age of gold. The rest of us 
meet that old mother every day in the Tuileries. That 
face of hers, and the wa3" she carries herself tells all. 
Come now, did 3’ou never guess what she is, from the 
way she carries her bag?” 

The two friends walked about for some time, and 
several 3'Oung men who knew Schinner and Souchet 
joined them. The painter’s love-affair was related by 
the sculptor, who supposed it of little importance. 

Man3’ were the outcries, the laughs, the jests, inno- 
cent enough, but full of the familiar ga3^et3" of artists, 
and horribly painful to Hippolyte. A certain chastity 
of soul made him suffer at the sight of his heart’s secret 
lightl3" tossed aljout, his passion torn to shreds, the 
young girl, whose life had seemed to him so modest, 
judged, trul3' or falsel3", with such careless indifference. 


296 


The Purse, 


0 

‘ ‘ But, my dear fellow, have you never seen the 
baroness’s shawl?” said Souchet. 

“Don’t 3'OU ever follow the little one when she 
goes to the Assumption?” said Joseph Bridau, a 
young art-student in Gros’s atelier. 

“Ha! the mother has, among her other virtues, a 
gra}^ dress which I regard as a type,” said Bixiou, the 
caricaturist. 

“ Listen, Hippol3'te ; ” said the sculptor, “ come here 
at four o’clock, and anal3’ze the demeanor of the mother 
and daughter. If, after that, 3'ou have an3’ doubts, I 
give 3’ou up, — nothing can ever be made of 3'ou ; 
you ’ll be capable of marrying your porter’s daughter.” 

The painter parted from his friends a victim to a 
contradiction of feelings. Adelaide and her mother 
seemed to him above such accusations, and at the 
bottom of his heart he felt remorse for having ever 
doubted the purit3^ of that 3'oung girl, so beautiful 
and so simple. He went to his studio, he passed the 
door of the room where she was sitting, and he felt 
within his soul the anguish that no man ever misun- 
derstands. He loved Mademoiselle de Rouville so 
passionateh" that, in spite of the robber3" of his purse, 
he adored her still. His love was like that of the 
Chevalier des Grieux, adoring and purifying his mis- 
tress in his thoughts as she sat in the cart on her wa3^ 
to the prison for lost women. 


The Purse. 


297 


Why should not love make her the purest of 
beings? Shall I abandon her to sin and vice, and 
stretch no friendly hand to her ? ” That mission pleased 
him. Love makes profit out of all. Nothing attracts a 
3'oung man so much as the thought of plac ing the part 
of a good genius to a woman. There is something truly 
chivalrous in such an enterprise which commends itself 
to lofty souls. Is it not the deepest devotion under the 
highest form, and the most gracious form? What 
grandeur in knowing that we love enough to love still 
where the love of others would be a dead thing ! 

Hippolyte sat dowui in his studio, and contemplated 
his picture without touching it. Night overtook him in 
that attitude. Wakened from his reverj’ bj" the dark- 
ness, he went downstairs, met the old admiral on the 
stair wa}^, gave him a gloom}^ glance and a bow, and 
fled away. He had meant to go to his neighbors, but 
the sight of Adelaide’s protector froze his heart and 
overcame his resolution. He asked himself, for the 
hundredth time, what interest it could be that brought 
that old beau, a man w^orth eightj’-thousand francs a 
year, to that fourth story where he lost forty francs a 
night ; that interest, he fancied, alas, he knew. 

The next day and the following daj's Hippolyte spent 
on his work, trying to fight his passion by flinging him- 
self into the rush of ideas and the fire of conception . 
He succeeded only partially. Study comforted him. 


298 


The Purse. 


but it did not stifle the memory of those dear hours 
passed with Adelaide. One evening, leaving his studio, 
he found the door of the apartments of the two ladies 
half-open. Some one was standing in the recess of the 
window. The position of the door and the stairs was 
such that Hippolyte could not pass without seeing 
Adelaide. He bowed coldly, with a glance of indiffer- 
ence ; then, judging of her sufferings by his own, an 
inward tremor overcame him, thinking of the bitterness 
his cold glance might have carried to a loving heart. 
What ! end the sweetest joys that ever filled two sacred 
hearts, with the scorn of an eight daj’s’ absence, with a 
contempt too deep for words ? — horrible conclusion ! 
Perhaps that purse was found ! he had never inquired ; 
perhaps Adelaide had expected him, in vain, every 
evening ! This thought, so simple, so natural, filled 
the lover with fresh remorse ; he asked himself if the 
proofs of attachment the young girl had given him, if 
those delightful conversations bearing the impress of 
love and of a mind which charmed him did not deserve 
at least an inquiry, — whether indeed the}- were not a 
pledge of justification. Ashamed of having resisted 
the longings of his heart for one whole week, thinking 
himself almost criminal in the struggle, he went that 
same evening to Madame de Rouville’s. All his sus- 
picions, all his thoughts of evil vanished at the sight of 
the young girl, now pale and thin. 


The Purse, 299 

“ Good God! what is the matter?” he said to her, 
after bowing to Madame de Rouville. 

Adelaide made no answer, but she gave him a sad, 
discouraged look which went to his heart. 

“ You look as if you had been working too hard,” 
said the old lady. “ You are changed. I fear we have 
been the cause of your seclusion. That portrait must 
have delayed other work more important for your 
reputation.” 

Hippolyte was only too happy to find so good an 
excuse for his absence. “ Yes,” he said, “ I have been 
very busy — but I have suffered — ” 

At these words Adelaide raised her head ; her eyes 
no longer reproached him. 

“ You have, then, thought us indifferent to what 
makes you happy or unhappy ? ” said the old lady. 

“ I have done wrong,” he said. “ And yet there are 
sufferings which we can tell to no one, no matter who 
it is, even to a heart that may have known us long.” 

“ The sincerity and the strength of friendship ought 
not to be measured by time. I have seen old friends 
who could not shed a tear for each other’s misfortune,’^ 
said the baroness, nodding her head. 

“ But tell me, what is the matter?” asked Hippolyte 
of the poor girl. 

“Oh, nothing,” said the baroness; “Adelaide in- 
sisted on sitting up two or three nights to finish a piece 


300 


The Purse. 


of work ; she would not listen to me when I told her 
that a da}’ more or less could make no difference — ” 

Hippolyte was not listening. Seeing those two faces, 
so calm, so noble, he blushed for his suspicions and 
attributed the loss of the purse to some mysterious 
accident. That evening was delightful to him, and 
perhaps to her. There are secrets that young souls 
understand so well. Adelaide divined her lover’s 
thoughts. Without intending to reveal his wrong- 
doing, Hippolyte tacitl}’ admitted it ; he returned to 
his mistress more loving, more affectionate than ever, 
as if to buy a silent pardon. Adelaide now tasted joys 
so sweet, so perfect, that the pangs which had cruelly 
bruised her spirit seemed but a slight penalty to pay 
for them. And yet that absolute accord between their 
hearts, that comprehension which was full of magic, 
was clouded suddenl}^ b}^ a little speech of Madame de 
Rouville’s. “Let us get ready for our game,” she 
said. “ My old Kergarouet insists upon it.” 

That speech roused all the poor painter’s fears ; he 
blushed as he looked at Adelaide’s mother. Yet he 
could see on that face no other expression than one of 
a true kind-heartedness without insincerit}’ ; no latent 
thought destroyed its charm ; in its shrewdness there 
was no perfidy ; the gentle satire it expressed seemed 
tender, and no remorse marred its placidity. So he sat 
down at the card-table. Adelaide shared his game, 


The Purse. 


301 


pretending that he did not know piquet and needed an 
adviser.^ While they pla3’ed, signs of an understand- 
ing passed between the mother and daughter which 
again made Hippol3 te anxious, — all the more because, 
for once, he was winning. At last, however, a lucky 
throw put the lovers in Madame de Rouville’s debt. 
Hippolyte withdrew his hands from the table to search 
for money in his pockets, and suddenly saw lying 
before him a purse which Adelaide had slipped there 
without his noticing her ; the poor child held his own 
purse in her hand, and was ^hiding her confusion by 
pretending to look for money to pay her mother. The 
blood rushed so violently to Hippolyte’s heart that he 
almost lost consciousness. The new purse substituted 
for the old one had the fifteen louis in it, and was 
worked with gold beads. The rings, the tassels, all 
proved the good taste of the maker, who had no doubt 
spent her little savings on those ornaments of her pretty 
work. It was impossible to say with greater delicacy 
that the painter’s gift could be acknowledged onl3^ b3’ a 
pledge of tenderness. 

When Hippolyte, overcome with happiness, turned 
his eyes on Adelaide and her mother he saw them 
trembling with pleasure, happ3’ in the success of their 
little fraud. He felt himself small, petty, contemptible ; 
he longed to punish himself, to rend his heart. Tears 
came into his e3’es, and he sprang up with an irresistible 


302 


The Purse, 


impulse, took Adelaide in his arms, pressed her to his 
heart, snatched a kiss, and cried, with the honest good- 
faith of an artist, looking straight at the baroness : — 

“ I ask you to give her to me for mj" wife ! ” 
Adelaide’s e3’es as she looked at him were half-angrj^, 
and Madame de Rouville, somewhat astonished, was 
seeking a repl}" when the scene was interrupted b}" a 
ring at the bell. The vice-admiral appeared, followed 
b}" Madame Schinner. After guessing the cause of her 
son’s grief, which he had vainly tried to hide from 
her, Hippolyte’s mother had made inquiries among her 
friends as to Adelaide. Alarmed by the calumnies 
which assailed the young girl, unknown to the old ad- 
miral, the Comte de Kergarouet, she went to the latter 
and told him what she had heard. In his fuij he wanted, 
he said, “ to cut the ears of those rascals.” Excited b}^ 
his wrath he told Madame Schinner the secret of his 
visits and his intentional losses at cards, that being the 
onl}" way in which the baroness’s pride gave him a 
chance to succor the widow of his old friend. 

When Madame Schinner had paid her respects to 
Madame de Rouville, the latter looked at the Comte de 
Kergarouet, the Chevalier du Halga (the former friend 
of the late Comtesse de Kergarouet), then at Hippolyte 
and Adelaide, and said, with the delightful manners of 
the heart, “We seem, I think, to be a family part)’.” 


LA GRENADlfiRE. 


TO CAROLINE. 

To THE POESY OF HIS JOURNET. 

A Grateful Traveller. 

La GRENADiiiRE is a little habitation on the right 
bank of the Loire, sloping towards it and about a 
mile from the bridge of Tours. Just here the river, 
broad as a lake, is strewn with green islets, and mar- 
gined by rocky shores, on which are numerous countr}^- 
houses, all built of white stone and surrounded by 
vineyards and gardens, in which the finest fruits in 
the world ripen under a sunny exposure. Industri- 
ously terraced b}’ generation after generation, the hol- 
lows of the rock reflect the raj^s of the sun, and the 
artificial temperature thus produced allows the culti- 
vation of the products of hot climates in the open 
ground. 

From one of the least sunken of these hollows which 
cut into the hillside, rises the sharp steeple of Saint- 
C^’r, a little village to which the scattered houses nomi- 
nally belong. A little beyond, the Choisille falls into 


304 


La Grenadiere. 


the Loire, through a rich valley which runs up among 
the hills. La Grenadiere [The Pomegranate], standing 
half-way up the rocky shore, about three hundred feet 
from the church, is one of those venerable homesteads 
some two or three hundred years old, which are seen 
in every lovel}" situation in Touraine. A cleft in the 
rock has facilitated the making of a stairway, which 
descends by easy steps to the “lev^e,” — the local name 
given to the dike built at the base of the slope to keep 
the Loire to its bed, and along which runs the mail 
road from Paris to Nantes. 

At the top of this flight of steps is a gate opening on 
a narrow, stony road, cut between two terraces which 
resemble fortifications, covered with vines and palings 
to prevent the rolling down of the earth. This path- 
way, starting from the foot of the upper terrace, and 
nearl}^ hidden bj’ the trees that crown it, leads to the 
house by a steep pitch, giving a view of the river which 
enlarges at every step. This sunken path ends at a 
second gate, gothic in character, arched, and bearing 
a few simple ornaments, which is now in ruins and 
' overgrown with gilli-flowers, ivj', mosses, and pellitor^'. 
These ineradicable plants decorate the walls of all the 
terraces, hanging from the clefts of the stone courses 
and designating each season by a garland of its own 
flowers. 

Beyond this mouldy gate a little garden, wrested 


La Grenadiere, 


305 


from the rock another terrace, with an old and 
blackened balustrade which overlooks the rest, pre- 
sents a lawn adorned b}’ a few trees, and a multitude 
of roses and other flowering plants. Opposite to the 
gate, at the other end of the terrace,' is a wooden 
pavilion resting against a neighboring wall, the posts 
of which are hidden under jasmine, hone 3 Suckle, vines, 
and clematis. In the middle of the garden stands the 
house, beyond a vaulted portico covered wdth vines, on 
which is the gate of a huge cellar hollowed in the rock. 
The house is surrounded with vine-clad arbors, and 
pomegranate-trees — which give their name to the place, 
— are growing in the open ground. ^ The facade has 
two large windows separated by a very countrified front- 
door, and three attic windows, placed ver\^ high up 
in the roof relatively to the low height of the ground 
floor. This roof has two gables and is covered with 
slate. The walls of the main building are painted 
yellow, and the door, the shutters on the lower floor, 
and the blinds on the roof are green. 

When you enter the house, 3 'ou And a little hall-way 
with a winding staircase, the grade of which changes 
at ever 3 ^ turn ; the wood is rotten, and the balusters, 
turning like a screw, are discolored b 3 ^ long usage. 
To the right of the door is a vast dining-room with 
antique panelling, floored in white tiles, manufactured 
at Chateau-Regnault ; on the left 4s the salon, a room 

20 


306 


La Grenadiere, 


of the same size, but without panels, hung with a gold- 
colored paj^er with green bordering. Neither of the 
two rooms has a plastered ceiling. The joists are of 
walnut, and the spaces are filled in with a natural 
white clay mixed with hair. On the first floor are 
two large chambers with white-washed walls ; the stone 
chimnej’-pieces in these rooms are less richly carved 
than those in the rooms below. All the windows face 
south. To the north there is onlj' a door opening be- 
hind the staircase on a vineyard. 

On the left of the house, a building with a wooden 
front backs against the wall ; the wood being protected 
from the sun and rain by slates which lie in long blue 
lines, upright and transversal, upon the walls. The 
kitchen, consigned as it were to this cottage, commu- 
nicates with the house, but it has an entrance of its 
own raised from the ground by a few steps, near to 
which is a deep well covered with a rustic pump ; 
its sides overgrown with water-plants and tall grass 
and juniper. This recent construction proves that 
La Grenadiere was originally a mere vendangeoir^ 
where the owners, living in the city (from which it is 
separated only by the broad bed of the Loire), came 
only to attend to their vintages, or to bring parties of 
pleasure. On such occasions they sent provisions for 
the day, and slept there at night only when the grapes 
were being gathered. 


La Grenadiere* 


307 


But the English have fallen like a swarm of 
grass-hoppers upon Touraine, and La Grenadiere was 
furnished with a kitchen that they might hire it. 
Fortunately this modern appendage is concealed by 
the first lindens planted along a path running down 
a ravine behind the orchard. The vineyard, of about 
two acres, rises above the house, and OA'erlooks it 
on a slope so steep that .it is very diflicult to climb. 
Between the back of the house and this hill, green 
with trailing shoots, is a narrow space of not more 
than five feet, always cold and damp, a sort of ditch 
full of rampant vegetation, and filled in rainy weather 
with the drainage from the vinej ard, used to enrich 
the soil of the fiower-beds of the terrace with the 
balustrade. 

The little house of the vine-dresser backs against the 
left gable ; it has a thatched roof and makes a sort of 
pendant to the kitchen. The whole property is enclosed 
by walls and palings ; the orchard is planted with fruit- 
trees of all kinds ; in short, not an inch of the precious 
soil is lost to cultivation. If man neglects an arid 
corner of this rock. Nature fiings into it a fig-tree 
perhaps, or wdld-fiowers, or a few strawberry- vines 
sheltered among the stones. 

Nowhere in the world can you find a home so modest, 
yet so grand, so rich in products, in fragrance, and 
in outlook. It is in the heart of Touraine, a little 


308 


La Grenadiire, 


Touraine in itself, where all the flowers, all the fruits, 
all the beauties of that region are fully represented. 
There are the grapes of every clime, the figs, the 
peaches, the pears of every species, melons growing 
wild in the open ground, as well as liquorice, the yellow 
broom of Spain, the oleanders of Italy, the jasmine of 
the Azores. The Loire fiows at your feet. You look 
down upon it from a terrace raised thirty fathom above 
its capricious waters. You inhale its breezes coming 
fresh from the sea and perfumed on their wa}^ by the 
fiowers along its shores. A wandering cloud, which 
changes at every instant its color and its form as it 
moves in space beneath the cloudless blue of heaven, 
gives a thousand varied aspects to each detail of that 
glorious scenery which meets the eye wherever turned. 
From there, you may see the river shores from Amboise, 
the fertile plain where rises Tours, its suburbs, its manu- 
factories, and Le Plessis ; also a portion of the left bank, 
from Vouvray to Saint-Symphorien, describing a half- 
circle of smiling vine3 ards. The view here is limited 
only b^' the rich slopes of Cher, a blue horizon broken 
b3" parks and villas. To the west the soul is lost in 
contemplation of the broad sheet of waters which bears 
upon its bosom, at all hours, vessels with white sails 
filled with the winds which ever sweep its vast basin. 

A prince might make La Grenadiere his villa ; a 
poet would make it his home ; lovers would count it 


La G-renadiere, 


809 


their sweetest refuge ; a worthy burgher of Tours might 
live there, — the spot has poems for all imaginations, 
for the humblest, for the coldest, as for the highest and 
the most fervent ; no one ever sta 3 ’ed there without 
breathing an atmosphere of happiness, without compre- 
hending a tranquil life devoid of ambition, relieved of 
care. Rever}’ is in the air, in the murmuring flow of 
waters ; the sands speak, they are sad or ga}’, golden 
or sullied ; all is in motion around, the possessor of this 
spot, motionless amid its ever-blooming flowers and its 
toothsome fruits. An Englishman gives a thousand 
francs merely" to live six months in that humble dwel- 
ling, and he binds himself to gather no products ; if he 
wants the fruits, he pa 3 ’s a double rent ; if the wine 
tempts him, he doubles it again. What, then, is La 
Grenadiere worth, with that flight of steps, the sunken 
path, the triple terrace, the two acres of vine 3 ’ard, those 
balustrades, those roses, the portico, its pump, the 
wmalth of tangled clematis and the cosmopolitan trees? 
Offer no price. La Grenadiere cannot be bought. Sold 
once in 1690 for forty thousand francs, and left with 
bitter regret, as the Arab of the desert abandons a 
favorite horse, it still remains in the same famil 3 ’, of 
which it is the pride, the patrimonial jewel, the Regent 
diamond. To see is not to have, saith the poet. From 
these terraces 3 ’ou see three valleys of Touraine and the 
cathedral suspended in ether like a delicate filagree. 


310 


La Grrenadiere. 


Can you pay for such treasures? Could 3'ou buy the 
health 3’ou will recover beneath those lindens? 

In the spring of one of the finest years of the Restora- 
tion, a lad3^ accompanied by a maid and two children, 
came to Tours in search of a house. She saw La 
Grenadiere and hired it. Perhaps the distance that 
separated it from the town decided her to take it. The 
salon was her bed-chamber ; she put each child in one 
of the rooms on the upper fioor, and the maid slept in 
a little chamber above the kitchen. The dining-room 
became the living-room of the little family’. The lad^’ 
furnished the house verj’^ simpl}^ but with taste ; there 
was nothing useless and nothing that conve^’ed a sense 
of luxuiy. The furniture was of walnut, without orna- 
ment. The neatness, and the harmony of the interior 
with the exterior made the charm of the house. 

It was difficult to know whether Madame Williamson 
(that was the name the lad}" gave) belonged to the rich 
bourgeoisie, or to the upper nobility, or to certain 
equivocal classes of the feminine species. Her sim- 
plicity of life gave grounds for contradictory supposi- 
tions, though her manners seemed to confirm the most 
favorable. It was, therefore, not long after her arrival 
at Saint-Cyr that her reserved conduct excited the 
curiosity of idle persons, who had the provincial habit 
of remarking upon everything that promised to enliven 
the narrow sphere in which they lived. 


La Grenadlere, 


311 


Madame Williamson was rather tall, slight and thin, 
but delicately made. She had pretty feet, more re- 
markable for the grace with which they were joined to 
the ankles than for their narrowness, — a vulgar merit. 
Her hands were handsome when gloved. A certain 
redness, that seemed movable and rather dark in tone, 
disfigured her white skin, which was naturallj* fair and 
ros3^ Premature wrinkles had aged a brow that was 
fine in shape and crowned with beautiful auburn hair, 
always braided in two strands and wound around the 
head, — a maidenl}^ fashion which became her melan- 
choly face. Her black eyes, sunken in dark circles and 
full of feverish ardor, assumed a calmness that seemed 
deceptive ; for at times, if she forgot the expression she 
imposed upon them, the}’ revealed some secret anguish. 
Her oval face was rather long, but perhaps in other 
days happiness and health may have rounded its out- 
lines. A deceptive smile, full of gentle sadness, was 
ever on her pallid lips, but the eyes grew animated, and 
the smile expressed the delights of maternal love when 
the two children, by whom she was always accompanied, 
looked at her and asked those idle and endless questions 
which have their meaning to a mother’s heart. 

Her walk was slow and dignified. She wore but one 
style of dress, with a constancy that showed a deliberate 
intention to take no further interest in personal adorn- 
ment, and to forget the world, by which, no doubt, she 


312 


La Grenadiere. 


wished to be forgot. Her gown was black and very 
long, fastened round the waist with a watered ribbon, 
and over it, in guise of a shawl, was a cambric kercbief 
with a broad hem, the ends passed negligently through 
her belt. Her shoes and her black silk stockings be- 
trayed the elegance of her former life, and completed 
the conventional mourning that she always wore. Her 
bonnet, always of the same English shape, was gray in 
color and covered with a black veil. 

She seemed very weak and ill. The only walk she 
took was from La Grenadiere to the bridge of Tours, 
where, on a calm evening she would take the two 
children to breathe the cool air from the river and 
admire the effects of the setting sun upon a landscape, 
as vast as that of the Bay of Naples or the Lake of 
Geneva. During the time she lived at La Grenadiere 
she went but twice to Tours, — once to ask the principal 
‘of the college to direct her to the best masters of 
Latin, mathematics, and drawing ; and next to arrange 
with the persons thus designated the price of their in- 
structions, and the hours at which her sons could take 
their lessons. But it sufficed to show herself once or 
twice a week on the bridge in the evening, to rouse the 
interest of nearly all the inhabitants of the town, who 
made it their habitual promenade. 

And yet, in spite of the harmless sp3dng which the 
dreary leisure and uneasy’ curiosity" of provincial towns 


La Grenadiere, 


313 


forces upon their leading societies, no real information 
as to the unknown lady, her rank, her fortune, or 
even her present condition, was obtained. The owner 
of La Grenadiere did, however, tell some of his friends 
the name (and it was no doubt a true one) under which 
she had taken the lease. She gave it as “Augusta Wil- 
liamson, Countess of Brandon.” The name was doubt- 
less that of her husband. The later events of her 
history confirmed this statement ; but it was never 
made public beyond the little world of merchants 
frequented by the owner. 

So Madame Williamson continued a mystery to the 
leading society’ of Tours, and all that she allowed them 
to discover was her simple manners, delightfully natu- 
ral, her personal distinction, and the tones of an an- 
gelic voice. The complete solitude in which she lived, 
her melancholy, and her beaut}’’ so cruelly obscured 
and even faded, charmed the minds of a few young 
men, who fell in love with her. But the more sincere 
they were, the less bold they became ; moreover, she 
was so imposing that it was difficult to address her. 
When one or two, more courageous than the rest, 
wrote to her, Madame Williamson put their letters 
unopened into the fire. She seemed to have come to 
this enchanting retreat to abandon herself wholly to 
the pleasure of living there. The three masters who 
were admitted to La Grenadiere spoke with respectful 


814 


La Grenadiere, 


admiration of the close and cloudless union which 
bound the children and the mother in one. 

The children also excited a great deal of interest, 
and no mother ever looked at them without envy. 
Both resembled Madame Williamson, who was really 
their mother. Each had a bright, transparent com- 
plexion and high color, clear, limpid eyes, long eye- 
lashes, and the purity of outline which gives such 
brilliancy to the beauties of childhood. The eldest, 
named Louis-Gaston, had black hair, and a brave, 
intrepid eye. Everj^thing about him denoted robust 
health, just as his broad, high forehead, intelligently 
rounded, foretold an energetic manhood. He was brisk 
and agile in his movements, a strapping lad, with 
nothing assuming about him, not easily surprised, and 
seeming to reflect on all he saw. His brother, named 
Marie-Gaston, was very fair, though a few locks of 
his hair were beginning to show the auburn color 
of his mother’s. He had also the slender figure, the 
delicate features, and the winning grace so attractive 
in Madame Williamson. He seemed sickly, his gra}^ 
e3’es had a gentle look, his cheeks were pale ; there 
was a good deal of the woman about him. His mother 
still kept him to embroidered collars, long curls, and 
those pretty jackets with frogged fastenings which 
are worn with so pleasing an effect, and which betray 
a feminine love of dress. 


La Grenadiere. 


815 


This dainty attire contrasted with the plain jacket 
of the elder brother, over which the plain linen collar 
of his shirt was turned. The trousers, boots, and 
color of the clothes wer^ the same in the two brothers, 
and proclaimed their relationship as much as did their 
physical likeness. Seeing them together, it was im- 
possible not to be struck with the care which Louis 
took of Marie. The look he gave him was paternal ; 
and Marie, in spite of his childlike heedlessness, 
seemed full of gratitude to his brother. These two 
little flowers, scarcely apart on the same twig, were 
shaken bj" the same breezes and warmed by the same 
sun-ray ; but while one was vigorous and rosy, the 
other was half-etiolated. A word, a look, an inflection 
of the voice sufficed to catch their attention, to make 
them turn their heads and listen, hear an order, a 
request, a suggestion, and obe3\ Madame Williamson 
made them understand her wishes and her will as though 
there were but one thought among them. 

When they were running or pla3ing before her in 
their walks, gathering a flower, examining an insect, 
her eyes rested upon them with such deep and tender 
emotion that the most indifferent observers were 
touched ; sometimes they even stopped to watch the 
smiling children, and saluted the mother with a 
friendly glance. Who, indeed, would not have ad- 
mired the exquisite nicety of their garments, the 


316 


La Grenadiere. 


pretty tones of their voices, the grace of their move- 
ments, their happj’ faces, and that instinctive nobility 
which told of careful training from their cradles? 
Those children seemed never to have wept or screamed. 
The mother had an almost electric sense of their wishes 
and their pains, and she calmed them or forestalled 
them ceaselessly. She seemed to dread a plaint from 
her children more than eternal condemnation for her- 
self. All things in and about them were to her honor ; 
and the picture of their triple life, seeming one and 
the same life, gave birth to vague, alluring visions of 
the joys we dream of tasting in a better world. 

The domestic life of these harmonious beings was in 
keeping with the ideas their outward appearaime con- 
veyed ; it was orderl^^, regular, and simple, as became 
a home where children were educated. The two boys 
rose early, by daybreak, and said a short prayer, taught 
them in infancy, — true words said for seven years on 
their mother’s bed, begun and ended by two kisses. 
Then the brothers, trained to that minute care of the 
person so essential to health of body and purity of 
soul, dressed themselves as carefully as a pretty woman 
might have done. They neglected nothing, so fearful 
were they of a word of blame, however tenderly their 
mother might utter it, — as, for instance, when she said 
at breakfast one morning, “ My dear angels, how did 
you get 3'our nails so black already ? ” 


La Grenadier e. 


317 


After dressing, the pair would go down into the 
garden and shake off the heaviness of the night in its 
dewy freshness, while waiting for the servant to put in 
order the dining-room, where they studied their lessons 
till their mother woke. But from time to time the}' 
peeped and listened to find out if she were awake, 
though forbidden to enter the room before a given 
hour; and this daily irruption, made in defiance of a 
compact, was a delightful moment both to them and to 
their mother. Marie would jump upon the bed and 
throw his arms about his idol, while Louis, kneeling 
beside the pillow, held her hand. Then followed tender 
inquiries like those of a lover, angelic laughter, caresses 
that were passionate and pure, eloquent silence, words 
half uttered, childish stories interrupted b}^ kisses, begun 
again, always listened to, seldom finished. 

“ Have you studied your lessons?” the mother would 
say, in a gentle voice, ready to pity idleness as a mis- 
fortune, but readier still with a tearful glance for the 
one who could say he had done his best. She knew 
those children desired only to satisfy her ; they knew 
she lived only for them, — that she led them by the 
wisdom of love and gave them all her thoughts and all 
her time. A marvellous instinct, which is neither rea- 
son nor egotism, which we may perhaps call sentiment 
in its first sincerity, teaches children whether they are 
or are not, the object of exclusive care, and whether 


318 


La Grenadiere. 


others find happiness in caring for them. Do 3’ou 
trul}' love them? then the dear creatures, all frankness 
and all justice, are delightfull}’ grateful. They love 
passionately and jealously" ; they’ possess the sweetest 
delicacy, they can find the tenderest words ; they confide 
to you, they trust to y’ou in all things. Perhaps there 
are no bad children without bad mothers, for the 
affection children feel is alway’S in reply to that they 
receive, to the first caress given to them, to the first 
words they have heard, to the first looks from which 
they have sought for love and life. At that period all 
to them is attraction or repulsion. God has put children 
in the womb of the mother to teach her that she must 
bear them long. 

And yet we find some mothers cruelly misunderstood 
by their children ; we see sublime maternal tenderness 
constantly’ wounded by’ horrible ingratitude and neg- 
lect, — showing how difficult it is to lay down absolute 
principles in matters of feeling. 

In the heart of this mother and in those of her sons 
no one of the thousand ties which could attach them to 
one another was missing. Alone on earth they’ lived a 
united life and understood each other. When Madame 
Williamson was silent the boys said nothing, respectful 
even to the thoughts they could not share. But the 
elder, gifted with a mind that was already strong, was 
never satisfied with his mother’s assurances that her 


La Grenadiere, 


319 


health was good ,* he studied her face with silent un- 
easiness, unaware of danger, jet foreboding it when he 
noticed the purple tints round the sunken eyes and 
saw that the hollows deepened and the red patches on 
the face grew more inflamed. Full of true perception, 
when he thought that his brother’s games were begin- 
ning to tire her he would say, “ Come, Marie, let’s go 
and breakfast ; I ’m hungry.” 

But when he reached the door he would turn back to 
catch the expression on his mother’s face, which always 
wore a smile for him, though sometimes tears would start 
from her eyes as a gesture of her boy revealed his exqui- 
site feeling, his precocious comprehension of her sorrow. 

The mother was always present at the lessons which 
took place from ten to three o’clock, interrupted at 
midda}' bj^ the second breakfast, generall}^ taken in the 
garden pavilion. After this meal came a play-hour, 
when the happy mother, the unhappy woman, lay on a 
sofa in the pavilion, whence she could see that sweet 
Touraine, incessantly changing, ceaselessly- rejuvenated 
by^ the varying accidents of light and sky and season. 

The boys ran about the place, climbing the terraces, 
chasing the lizards, themselves as agile ; they- watched 
the seeds, and studied the insects and the flowers, run- 
ning constantly to their mother with questions. Children 
need no playthings in the country ; the things about 
them are amusement and occupation enough. 


320 


Jja Grenadiere. 


During the lessons Madame Williamson sat in the 
room with her work ; she was silent and never looked 
at either masters or pupils, but she listened attentively 
to catch the meaning of the words and know if Louis 
were understanding them, and whether his mind were 
acquiring force. If he interrupted his master with a 
question, that was surely a sign of progress ; then the 
mother’s e3’es would brighten, she smiled, and gave the 
boy a look full of hope. She exacted very little of 
Marie ; all her anxiet}" was for the elder, to whom she 
showed a sort of respect, employing her womanl}^ and 
motherly tact to lift his soul and give him a high sense 
of what he should become. Behind this course was a 
hidden purpose which the child was one day to compre- 
hend — and he did comprehend it. After each lesson 
she inquired carefully of the masters what they thought 
of Louis’s progress. She was so kindly and so winning 
that the teachers told her the truth and showed her how 
to make Louis work in directions where they thought 
him wanting. 

Such was their life, uniform but full, — a life where 
work and plaj^ cheerfully mingled, left no opening for 
ennui. Discouragement or anger was impossible, the 
mother’s boundless love made all things easy. She 
had taught her sons discretion b}" refusing nothing to 
them ; courage, b}' awarding them just praise ; resig- 
nation, by showing them its necessity under all cir- 


La Grenadiere, 


321 


cumstances. She developed and strengthened the 
angelic nature within them with the care of a guard- 
ian angel. Sometimes a few tears would moisten her 
eves, when, watching them at play, the thought came 
that the}’ had never caused her a moment’s grief. 
She spent delightful hours l}ing on her rural couch, 
enjoying the fine weather, the broad sheet ^of water, 
the picturesque country, the voices of her children, 
their merry laughs rippling into fresh laughter, and 
their little disputes, which only evidenced their union, 
and Louis’s fatherly care of Marie, and the love of both 
for her. 

They all spoke French and English equally well, and 
the mother used both languages in conversing with her 
boys. She ruled them by kindness, — hiding nothing, 
but explaining all. She allowed no false idea to gain 
a lodgment in their minds, and no mistaken principle 
to enter their hearts. When Louis wished to read she 
gave him books that were interesting and yet sound, 
true to the facts of life, — lives of famous sailors, bio- 
graphies of great men, illustrious captains ; finding in 
such books the occasions to explain to him the world 
and life, to show him the means by which obscure 
persons who had greatness within their souls, coming 
from the lower walks of life and without friends, had 
succeeded in rising to noble destinies. 

Such lessons she gave him in the evening, when 
21 


322 


La Grenadiere. 


Marie, tired with his play, was sleeping on her knees 
in the cool silence of a beauteous night, w'hen the 
Loire reflected the heavens. But the}^ increased her 
secret sadness, and ended often in leaving her ex- 
hausted, thoughtful, and with her eyes full of tears. 

“ Mother, wh}^ do you cry?” asked Louis, one rich 
June evening, just as the half- tints of a softly-lighted 
night were succeeding a warm da^^ 

“My son,” she answered, winding her arm around 
the neck of the bo}', whose concealed emotion touched 
her deepl}^ “ because the hard lot of Jameray Duval, 
wLo reached distinction without help, is the fate I have 
brought on you and 3"our brother. Soon, my dear child, 
3’ou will be alone in the world, with no one to lean 
on, no protector. I am forced to leave 3’ou, still mere 
children ; and yet I think that you, my Louis, know 
enough, and are strong enough to be a guide to Marie. 
I love you too well not to suffer from such thoughts. 
God grant 3’ou may not some day curse me.” 

‘ “ Why should I curse 3'ou, mother?” 

“ Some da\’, my child,” she answered, kissing his 
brow, “3’ou will realize that I have done you wrong. 
I abandon you, here, without means, without fortune, 
without” — she hesitated — “without a father,” she 
added. 

Tears choked her voice ; she gentl3" pushed her son 
awa3' from her, and he, understanding b3" a sort of 


La Orenadiere. 


323 


\ 

intuition that she wished to be alone, carried the 
sleeping Marie away with him. An hour later, when 
his brother was in bed, Louis returned with cautious 
steps to the pavilion where his mother was still lying. 
He heard her call, in a voice that sounded sweetly on 
his ear, — 

“ Louis, come ! ” 

The bo3' flung himself into his mother’s arms, and 
they kissed each other almost convulsively. 

“ Dearest,” he said, for he often gave her that name, 
finding even that too feeble to express his tenderness, 
“ dearest, why do you fear that you will die? ” 

“ I am very ill, my poor loved angel,” she said. “ I 
grow weaker daily ; my disease is incurable, and I 
know it.” 

“ What disease is it?” 

“ I must forget ; and you, j’ou must never know the 
cause of my death.” 

The child was silent for a moment, glancing furtivelj" 
at his mother whose e^'es were raised to heaven, watch- 
ing the clouds. Moment of tender melancholy ! Louis 
did not believe in his mother’s approaching death, but 
he felt her griefs without understanding them. He 
respected her long reverj’’. Were he less a child he 
might have read upon that sacred face thoughts of 
repentance mingled with happ}" memories, — the whole 
of a woman’s life ; a careless girlhood, a cold marriage, 


324 


La Grenadiere, 


a terrible passion, flowers born of a tempest, hurled by 
the lightning to the depths of that abj’ss from which 
there is no return. 

“ My precious mother,” said Louis at last, “ wh}* do 
you hide your sufferings from me ? ” 

‘‘M3’ son,” she answered, “we should alwa3’S hide 
our troubles from the eyes of strangers, and show to 
them a smiling face ; we should never speak to others 
of ourselves, but think 01113^ of them. Those things, if 
we practise them in our homes, will make others happ3’. 
Some day you, too, will suffer deepl3’. Then remember 
3’our poor mother, who died before your eves hiding 
her griefs, and smiling for you ; it will give you courage 
to bear the woes of life.” 

Smothering her feelings, she tried to show her boy 
the mechanism of existence, the just value, the ground- 
work, and the stabilit3’' of wealth ; the power of social 
relations ; the honorable means of amassing 11101163’ for 
the wants of life ; and the necessit3' of education. Then 
she revealed to him one cause of her sadness and her 
tears, and told him that on the morrow of her death he 
and Marie would be destitute, possessing 01113’ ^ trifling 
sum of mone3', and with no other protector than God. 

“ Mhat haste 1 must make to learn I ” cried the boy, 
glancing at his mother, with a deep, yet plaintive look. 

“Ah, I am happ3’ ! ” she exclaimed, covering her 
son with tears and kisses. “He has understood me! 


La Grenadiire. 


325 


Louis,” she added, “3’ou will be 3’our brother’s guard- 
ian, will 3'ou not? 3'ou promise me? You are no longer 
a child.”' 

“Yes,” he answered, “I promise; but 3’ou will not 
die yet? Say 3’ou will not ! ” 

“Poor children!” she said, “ m3^ love for 3'on de- 
tains me ; and this counti^ is so beautiful, the air is so 
reviving, perhaps — ” 

‘ ‘ I shall love Touraine more than ever now,” said 
the lad, with emotion. 

From that day Madame Williamson, foreseeing her 
end, talked to her eldest son of his future lot. Louis, 
who had now completed his fourteenth 3ear, became 
more thoughtful, applied himself better, and cared less 
for play. Whether it were that be persuaded Marie to 
read, instead of caring onl3’ for games of pla3', it is certain 
that the two boys made much less noise in the sunken 
paths and in the terraces and gardens of La Grenadiere. 
They conformed their life to the sad condition of their 
mother, whose face grew paler day by da3^ with 3'ellow 
tints, the lines deepening night after night. 

In the month of August, six months after the arrival 
of the little family, all was changed at La Grenadiere. 
The prett3^ house, once so ga3% so lively, had grown 
sad and silent, and its occupants seldom left the prem- 
ises. Madame Williamson had scarcel3' strength to 
walk to the bridge. Louis, whose imagination had 


326 


La Grenada re. 


suddenl}' developed, and who had now identified himself, 
as it were, with his mother, guessing her weariness, 
invented pretexts to avoid a walk which he felt was too 
long for her. Happy couples passing along the road to 
Saint-CjT and the groups of pedestrians below upon the 
levee saw, in the warm evenings, the pale, emaciated 
woman in deep mourning, near her end yet still brilliant, 
pacing like a phantom along the terraces. Great suffer- 
ings are divined. Even the cottage of the vine-dresser 
became silent. Sometimes the peasant and his wife 
and children were grouped about their door, Fannj^, the 
old English servant, would be washing near the w'ell, 
Madame Williamson and her boys sitting in the pavilion, 
and yet no sound was heard in the once gay gardens, 
and all eyes turned, when the d^ ing woman did not see 
them, to contemplate her. She was so good, so thought- 
ful for others, so worthy of respect from all who ap- 
proached her! 

Since the beginning of the autumn, which is always 
fine and brilliant in Touraine, and which, with its bene- 
ficent influences, its fruits, its grapes, did somewhat 
prolong the mothers life beyond the natural term of 
her hidden malady, she had thought of nothing but her 
children, and rejoiced over every hour she had them 
with her as though it were her last. 

From the month of June to the month of September 
Louis studied at night without his mother’s knowledge 


La Grenadier e. 


327 


and made enormous progress ; he was already in the 
equations of the second degree in algebra, had learned 
descnptiye geometry, and drew admirably well. He 
was, in fact, prepared to pass an entrance examination 
to the Ecole Pol^^technique. Occasionally’ in the even- 
ings he went to walk on the bridge of Tours, where he 
had met a lieutenant of the navy on half-pay ; the 
manly’ face, the decorated breast, the hearty’ bearing of 
this sailor of the Empire, affected his imagination. The 
lieutenant, on the other hand, took a fancy’ to the lad 
whose eyes . sparkled with energy’. Louis, eager for 
military’ tales and liking to ask questions, walked about 
with the old salt and listened to him. The lieutenant 
had a friend and companion in an infantry colonel; 
young Gaston could therefore hear of the two lives, 
military’ and naval, life in camp and life on seaboard, 
and he questioned the two officers incessantly. 

After a time, entering into their hard lot and their 
rough experience, he suddenly’ asked his mother for 
permission to roam about the canton to amuse himself. 
As the astonished masters had told- Madame Williamson 
that her son was studying too hard, she acceded to his 
request with extreme pleasure. The boy took immense 
walks. Wishing to harden himself to fatigue he climbed 
the highest trees with agility, he learned to swim, and 
he sat up working at night. He was no longer the 
same child ; he was a young man, on whose face the sun 


328 


La Grenadiere, 


had cast its brown tones, bringing out the lines of an 
already deep purpose. 

The month of October came, and Madame Williamson 
could rise onl}" at midday, when the sun-rays, reflected 
from the Loire and concentrated on the terraces, pro- 
duced the same equable warmth at La Grenadiere that 
prevails on warm, moist days around the Bay of Naples, 
— a circumstance which leads physicians to recommend 
Touraine. On such da3’s she would sit beneath an 
evergreen, and her sons no longer left her. Studies 
ceased, the masters were dismissed. Children and 
mother wished to live in one another’s hearts, without a 
care, without distractions from the outside. No tears 
were shed, no happy laughter heard. The elder, lying 
on the grass beside his mother, was like a lover at her 
feet, which he sometimes kissed. Marie, restless and 
uneas3% gathered flowers, which he brought to her with 
a sad air, rising on tiptoe to take from her lips the kiss 
of a 3"Oung girl. That pallid woman with the large 
black e3’es, lying exhausted, slow in all her motions, 
making no plaint, smiling at her two children so full of 
health, so living, was indeed a touching spectacle amid 
the melanchol3' glories of autumn, with its yellowflng 
leaves, its half-bared trees, the softened light of the sun 
and the white clouds of a Touraine sk3\ 

The da3' came w^hen Madame Williamson was ordered 
by the doctor not to leave her room. Dail3" it was 


La Grenadiere, 


329 


adorned with the flowers she loved best, and her chil- 
dren sta^'ed there. Earlj^ in November she opened her 
piano for the last time. A Swiss landscape hung above 
it. Beside the window the brothers, with their arms 
around each other, showed her their mingled heads. 
Her eyes moved constantly from her children to the 
landscape, from the landscape. to her children. Her 
face colored, her fingers ran with passion along the 
ivory notes. It was her last fete, a fgte hidden from 
others, a fete celebrated in the depths of her soul by 
the genius of memor}'. 

The doctor came and bade her keep her bed. The 
sentence was received by her and by her sons in a 
silence that was almost stupid. 

When the ph3’sician went rwslj she said : ‘ ‘ Louis, 
take me on the terrace that I maj' see the country once 
more.” 

At these words, simply said, the lad gave her his arm 
and took her to the centre of the terrace. There her 
e3"es sought, involuntaril3’’ perhaps, the heavens rather 
than the earth ; it would have been difficult at that 
moment to sa3’ where was the finer landscape, for the 
clouds represented vaguely the majestic glaciers of the 
Alps. Her brow contracted violently, her e3’es took 
an expression of remorse and sorrow, she caught the 
hands of her children and pressed them to her beating 
heart. 


330 


La Grenadiere. 


“ Father and mother unknown ! ” she cried, casting 
an agonized look upon them. “Poor children! what 
will become of 3'Ou? And when you are men, what 
stern account will j'ou not demand of me for m3’ life 
and 3’ours?’* 

She pushed her children from her, placed both elbows 
on the balustrade, hid her face in her hands, and re- 
mained for a few moments alone with her soul, fearing 
to be seen. When she roused herself from her grief 
she saw Louis and Marie kneeling beside her like two 
angels ; they watched her looks and both smiled at 
her. 

“ Could. I but take those smiles with me ! ” she said, 
dr3’ing her e3’es. 

She returned to the house and went to her bed, to 
leave it no more until they placed her in her coffin. 

Eight days went b3’, each da3’ like the rest. The old 
waiting-woman and Louis took turns to watch that bed 
at night, their e3’es fixed on the patient. It was the 
same drama, profoundl3’ tragic, which is played at all 
hours and in all families where they dread that ever3’ 
breath ma3’ be the last of some adored member. On 
the fifth day of this fatal week the doctor proscribed 
flowers. One by one the illusions of life were taken 
from her. 

After that day Louis and Marie found fire beneath 
their lips when the3’ kissed their mother’s brow. At 


La Grenadiere. 


331 


last, on the Saturday night, she could bear no noise, and 
her room was left in disorder. That necessar}" neglect 
marked the beginning of the death of this woman, once 
so fastidious, so enamoured of elegance. Louis no 
longer left her even for a moment. 

During the night of Sunday, in the midst of deepest 
silence, Louis, who thought her dozing, saw by the 
light of the lamp a white, moist hand put back the 
curtain. 

' “My son,” she said. 

The tones of the dying woman were so solemn that 
their power, proceeding from her troubled soul, reacted 
violently on her child ; he felt a burning heat in the 
marrow of his bones. 

“ What is it, mother?” 

“ Listen to me. To-morrow all will be over. We 
shall see each other no more. To-morrow j’ou will be 
a man, my child. I am obliged to make certain ar- 
rangements which must remain a secret between you 
and me. Take the key of my little table. You have it? 
Open the drawer. You will find on the left two sealed 
papers. On one is marked Louis, on the other, Marie.” 

“ I have them, mother.” 

“ My darling son, they are the legal records of 3’our 
birth, of great importance to 3'ou. Give them to my 
poor old Fanny, who will take care of them for 3’ou, and 
return them to 3’ou when needed. Now,” she continued, 


832 


La Grenadiere. 


“ look again in the same place and see if there is not 
another paper on which I have written a few lines 

“ Yes, mother.” 

And Louis began to read : “ Marie Augusta William- 
son, born at — ’’ 

“ That will do,” she said quickl}', “ Don’t go on. My 
son, when I am dead, give that paper also to Fanny and 
tell her to take it to the maj'or’s office at Saint-C} !’, 
where they will need it to draw up the record of my 
death. Now bring what you require to write a letter 
at m}^ dictation.” 

When she saw that her son was ready and that he 
turned to her as if to listen, she said, in a calm voice, 
dictating: “Sir, your wife. Lady Brandon, died at 
Saint-Cyr, near Tours, department of the Indre-et-Loire. 
She forgave 3’ou. Sign it — ” 

She stopped, hesitating and agitated. 

“ Do 3’ou feel worse? ” asked Louis. 

“ Sign it, ‘Louis Gaston.’” 

She sighed, then continued : “ Seal the letter and 
direct it to ‘ The Earl of Brandon, Brandon Square, 
Hyde Park, London, England.’ Have you written it? 
Very good,” she said. “ On the daj^ of my death you 
must mail that letter from Tours. Now,” she continued, 
after a pause, “ bring my little pocket-book — 3*011 know 
it — and come close to me, dear child. In it,” she said, 
when Louis had returned to her, “ are twelve thousand 


La Grenadier e. 


333 


francs. Thc}^ are rightfully yours, alas ! You would 
have had far more had your father — ” 

“ My father ! ” exclaimed the lad, “ where is he?” 

“ Dead,” she replied, laying a finger on her lips, — 
“dead to save my honor and my life.” 

She raised her eyes to heaven ; she would have wept 
had she still had tears for sorrows “ Louis,” she said, 
“ swear to me on this pillow that you will forget all that 
you have written, and all that I have said to you.” 

“Yes mother.” 

“ Kiss me, dear angel.” 

She made a long pause as if to gather courage from 
God, and to limit her words to the strength that was 
left to her. 

“ Listen,” she said at last. “ These twelve thousand 
francs are 3’our whole fortune ; 3'ou must keep them 
upon your person, because when I am dead, the legal 
authorities will come here and put seals on everything. 
Nothing will belong to you, not even your mother. 
Poor orphans! all 3'ou can do is to go away — God 
knows where. I have provided for Fann}^ ; she will 
have three hundred francs a year and staj^ in Tours. 
But what will 3’ou do with 3’ourself and 3’our brother?” 

She raised herself in the bed and looked at the brave 
bo3% who, with great drops on his forehead, pale from 
emotion, his eyes half-veiled in tears, stood erect 
before her. 


334 


La Crrenadiere. 


“Mother,” he replied in a deep voice, “I have 
thought of it. I shall take Marie to the college of 
Tours. I shall give ten thousand francs to old Fanny 
and tell her to put them in safety, and to watch over m^^ 
brother. Then, with the rest, I will go to Brest, and 
enter the navy as an apprentice. While Marie is get- 
ting his education I shall be promoted lieutenant. 
Mother, die easy ; I shall be rich ; I will put our boy 
into the Ecole Poly technique, and he shall follow his 
bent.” 

A flash of joy came from the half-quenched eyes of 
the mother ; two tears rolled down her burning cheeks ; 
then a great sigh escaped her lips. She barely escaped 
dying at that moment from the joy of finding the soul 
of the father in that of her son, now suddenly trans- 
formed into a man. 

“Angel from heaven!” she said, weeping, “j^ou 
have healed my sorrows with those words. Ah ! I can 
die now. He is my son,” she added ; “I have made, 
I have trained, a man.” 

She raised her hands in the air and clasped them, as 
if to express a boundless joy ; then she lay back on the 
pillows. 

“ Mother, you are turning white,” cried the bo}^ 

“ Fetch a priest,” she answered, in a dying voice. 

Louis woke old Fanny, who ran in terror to the 
parsonage of Saint-Cyr. 


La Grenadier e. 


335 


Earh^ in the morning Madame Williamson received 
the sacraments in presence of her children, with old 
Fanny, and the famih’ of the vine-dresser, simple folk, 
now part of the family, kneeling round her. The silver 
cross borne by a humble choir boy, a village choir boy ! 
was held before the bed ; an old priest administered 
the viaticum to the dying mother. The viaticum ! sub- 
lime w^ord, idea more sublime than the word, which the 
apostolic religion of the Roman Church alone employs. 

“This woman has suffered much,” said the curate 
in his simple language. 

Madame Williamson heard no longer ; but her eyes 
remained fastened on her children. All present, in 
mortal terror, listened in the deep silence to the 
breathing of the dying woman as it slackened and 
grew slower. At intervals, a deep sigh showed that 
life was still continuing the inward struggle. At last, 
the mother breathed no longer. Those present wept, 
excepting Marie, too j'oung, poor child, to be aware 
of death. Fanny and the vine-dresser’s wife closed 
the eyes of the once exquisite creature, whose beauty 
reappeared in all its glory. They sent away those 
present, took the furniture from the room, placed the 
body of the departed in its shroud, lighted the wax- 
tapers around the bed, arranged the basin of holy 
water, the branch of box, and the crucifix, after the 
manner of that region of countiy, closed the blinds 


336 


La Grenadiere. 


and drew the curtains. Then the vicar came and 
passed the night in prayer with Louis, who would 
not leave his mother. 

The funeral took place Tuesda}' morning ; old Fanny, 
the children, and the vine-dresser alone followed the 
body of a w’oman whose beauty, wit, and grace had 
given her in other da3’s a European fame ; and whose 
funeral would have been pompouslj^ heralded in the 
newspapers of London, as an aristocratic solemnit}", 
had she not committed a tender crime, a crime alwa3's 
punished on this earth, perhaps to allow the pardoned 
angel to enter heaven. When the earth fell on his 
mother’s coffin, Marie wept, comprehending then that 
he should see her no more. 

A simple wooden cross stands above her grave and 
bears these words, given b3' the curate of Saint-C3’r. 

HERE LIES 

A SORROWFUL WOMAN. 

SHE DIED AGED THIRTY-SIX, 

Bearing the name Augusta in Heaven. 

Pray for her. 

When all was over the children returned to La 
Grenadiere to cast a last look upon their home ; then, 
holding each other b3' the hand, they prepared to 


La Grenadiere. 


83 ’ 


leave it with Fann}’, making the vine-dresser respon- 
sible to the authorities. 

At the last moment the old waiting-woman called 
Louis to the steps of the well, and said to him apart : 

“ INIonsieur Louis, here is madame’s ring.” 

The boy wept, — moved at the sight of a living memo- 
rial of his dead mother. In his strong self-command 
he had forgotten this last dutj’. He kissed the old 
woman. Then all three went down the sunken path- 
wa}’, and down the flight of steps, and on to Tours 
without once looking back. 

“ Mamma used to stand here,” said Marie, when the}" 
reached the bridge. 

Fanny had an old cousin, a retired dressmaker, 
living in the rue de la Guerche. There she took the 
lads, thinking the}' could all live together. But Louis 
explained his plans, gave her Marie’s certificate of 
birth and the ten thousand francs, and the next day, 
accompanied by the old woman, he took his brother 
to the school. He told the principal the facts of the 
case, but very briefly, and went away, taking his 
brother with him to the gate. There he tenderly and 
solemnly told him of their loneliness in the world and 
gave him counsel for the future, looked at him silently 
a moment, kissed him, looked at him again, wiped 
away a tear, and went away, looking back again and 
again at his brother, left alone at the college gate. 


338 


La Grenadiere. 


A month later Louis Gaston was an apprentice on 
board a government ship, leaving the Rochefort roads. 
Leaning against the shrouds of the corvette “ Iris,” he 
watched the coasts of France as the3" dropped below 
the blue horizon. Soon he saw himself alone, lost in 
the midst of ocean, as he was in the midst of life. 

“Mustn’t cr}^, }^oung fellow; there ’s a God for all 
the world,” said an old seaman, in his gruff voice, both 
harsh and kind. 

The lad thanked him with an intrepid look. Then 
he bowed his head and resigned himself to a sailor’s 
life, for — was he not a father? 


1832. 


Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications, 


A MEMOIR OF HONORE DE BALZAO. 


Compiled and written by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, translator 
of Balzac’s works. With portrait of Balzac, taken one hour after 
death, by Eugene Giraud, and a Sketch of the Prison of the College 
de Vendome. One volume, lamo. Half Russia, uniform with our 
edition of Balzac’s works. Price, ^1.50. 

A complete life of Balzac can probably never be written. The sole object of 
the present volume is to present Balzac to American readers. This memoir is 
meant to be a presentation of the man, — and not of his work, except as it was a 
part of himself, — derived from authentic sources of information, and presented in 
their own words, with such simple elucidations as a close intercourse with Balzac’s 
mind, necessitated by conscientious translation, naturally gives. The portrait 
in this volume was considered by Madame de Balzac the best likeness of her 
husband. 

Miss Wormeley’s discussion of the subject is of value in many ways, and it has 
long been needed as a help to comprehension of his life and character. Person- 
ally, he lived up to his theory. His life was in fact austere. Any detailed ac- 
count of the conditions under which he worked, such as are given in this volume, 
will show that this must have been the case ; and the fact strongly reinforces the 
doctrine. Miss Wormeley, in arranging her account of his career, has, almost 
of necessity, made free use of the letters and memoir published by Balzac’s sister, 
Madame Surville. She has also, whenever it would serve the purpose of illus- 
tration better, quoted from the sketches of him by his contemporaries, wisely 
rejecting the trivialities and frivolities by the exaggeration of which many of his 
first chroniclers seemed bent upon giving the great author a kind of opera-bouffe 
aspect. To judge from some of these accounts, he was flighty, irresponsible, 
possibly a little mad, prone to lose touch of actualities by the dominance of his 
imagination, fond of wild and impracticable schemes, and altogether an eccentric 
and unstable person. But it is not difficult to prove that Balzac was quite a 
different character ; that he possessed a marvellous power of intellectual organi- 
zation ; that he was the most methodical and indefatigable of workers ; that he 
was a man of a most delicate sense of humor ; that his life was not simply de- 
voted to literary ambition, but was a martyrdom to obligations which were his 
misfortune, but not his fault. 

All this Miss Wormley has well set forth ; and in doing so she has certainly 
relieved Balzac of much unmerited odium, and has enabled those who have not 
made a study of his character and work to understand how high the place is in 
any estimate of the helpers of modern progress and enlightenment to which his 
genius and the loftiness of his aims entitle him. This memoir is a very modest 
biography, though a very good one. The author has effaced herself as much as 
possible, and has relied upon “ documents” whenever they were trustworthy. — 
W. y. Tribune. 


Sold by all booksellers. Mailed., postpaid.^ on receipt of 
price., by the publishers., 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. 


BALZAC IN ENGLISH. 


♦ 

An Historical Mystery. 

Translated by KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY. 

12mo. Half Russia. Uniform with Balzac’s Works. Price, $1.50. 

An Historical Mystery the title given to‘‘ Une Tendbreuse Affaire,” which 
has just appeared in the series of translations of Honore de Balzac’s novels, by 
Katharine Prescott Wormeley This exciting romance is full of stirring interest, 
and is distinguished by that minute analysis of character in which its eminent 
author excelled. The characters stand boldly out from the surrounding incidents, 
and with a fidelity as wonderful as it is truthful. Plot and counterplot follow 
each other with marvellous rapidity; and around the exciting days when Na- 
poleon was First Consul, and afterward when he was Emperor, a mystery is 
woven in which some royalists are concerned that is concealed with masterly 
ingenuity until the novelist sees fit to take his reader into his confidence. The 
heroine, Laurence, is a remarkably strong character; and the love-story in which 
she figures is refreshing in its departure from the beaten path of the ordinary 
writer of fiction. Michu, her devoted servant, has also a marked individuality, 
which leaves a lasting impression. Napoleon, Talleyrand, Fouche, and other 
historical personages, appear in the tale in a manner that is at once natural and 
impressive. As an addition to a remarkable series, the book is one that no 
admirer of Balzac can afford to neglect. Miss Wormeley’s translation reproduces 
the peculiarities of the author’s style with the faithfulness for which she has 
hitherto been celebrated. — Saturday Evening Gazette. 

It makes very interesting reading at this distance of tune, however; and Balzac 
has given to the legendary account much of the solidity of history by his adroit 
manipulation. For the main story it must be said that the action is swifter and 
more varied than in many of the author's books, and that there are not wanting 
many of those cameo-like portraits necessary to warn the reader against slovenly 

f ierusal of this carefully written story; for the complications are such, and the re- 
ations between the several plots involved so intricate, that the thread might 
easily be lost and much of the interest be thus destroyed The usual Balzac 
compactness is of course present throughout, to give body and significance to the 
work, and the stage is crowded with impressive figures. It would be impossible 
to find a book which gives a better or more faithful illustration of one of the 
strangest periods in French history, in short; and its attraction as a story is at 
lea.st equalled by its value as a true picture of the time it is concerned with. The 
translation is as spirited and close as Miss Wormeley has taught us to expect in 
this admirable series. — New York Tribune. 

One of the most intensely interesting novels that Balzac ever wrote is A n 
H istorical Afystety, whose translation has just been added to the preceding 
novels that compose the ‘‘Comedie Humaine” so admirably translated by Miss 
Katharine Prescott Wormeley. The story opens in the autumn of 1803, in the 
time of the Empire, and the motive is in deep-laid political plots, which are re- 
vealed with the subtle and ingenious skill that marks the art of Balzac. . . The 
story is a deep-laid political conspiracy of the secret service of the ministry of 
the police. Talleyrand, M’lle de Cinq-Cvgne, the Princess de Cadigan, Louis 
XVIII , as well as Napoleon, figure as characters of this thrilling historic ro- 
mance. An absorbing love-story is also told, in which State intrigue plays an 
important part. The character-drawing is faithful to history, and the story illu- 
minates French life in the early years of the century as if a calcium light were 
thrown on the scene. 

It is a romance of remarkable power, and one of the most deeply fascinating 
of all the novels of the ‘“Comedie Humaine.” 


Sold by all booksellers. Mailed.^ post-paid.^ on receipt of 
price by the Publishers. 

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BALZAC IN ENGLISH. 


» 

SONS OF THE SOIL. 

Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley. 


Many critics have regarded “ Les Paysans,” to which Miss Wormeley, 
in her admirable translation, has given the title “ Sons of the Soil,” as one 
of Balzac’s strongest novels ; and it cannot fail to impress those who read 
this English rendering of it. Fifty orisTxty years ago Balzac made a pro- 
found study of the effects produced by the Revolution upon the peasants • 
of the remote provinces of France, and he has here elaborated these obser- 
vations in a powerful picture of one of those strange, disguised, but fero- 
cious social wars which were at the time not only rendered possible, but 
promoted by three potent influences, namely, the selflslmess of the rich 
landholders ; the land-hunger and stimulated greed of the peasants ; and 
the calculated rapacity of middle-class capitalists, craftily using the hatreds 
of the poor to forward their own plots. The first part of “ Les Paysans 
(and the only part which wos published during the author’s life) appeared 
under a title taken from an old and deeply significant proverb, Qui a terre 
a guerre, — “Who has land has war.” 

It is the account of a guerilla war conducted by a whole country-sid^ 
against one great land-owner, — a war in which, moreover, the lawless 
aggressions of the peasantry are prompted, supported, and directed by an 
amazing alliance between the richest, most unscrupulous, and most power 
ful of the neighboring provincial magnates, who, by controlling, through 
family council, the local administration, are in a position to paralyze resist 
ance to their conspiracy. The working out of this deep plot affords tlx 
author opportunity for the introduction of a whole gallery of marvellout 
studies. 

It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that this powerful and absorbing 
story is lifted above the level of romance by the unequalled artistic genius 
of the author, and that it is at times almost transformed into a profound 
political study by the depth and acumen of his suggestions and comments. 
Nor should it be requisite to point out analogies with territorial conditions 
in more than one other country, which lend to “ Les Paysans ” a special 
interest and significance, and are likely to prevent it from becoming obsolete 
for a long time to come. Of the translation it only need be said that it is 
as good as Miss Wormeley has accustomed us to expect, and that means 
the best rendering of French into English that has ever been done. — 
New York Tribune, 


Handsome 12mo volume, bound in half Russia. Price, 
$1.50. 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 

BOSTON, MASS. 


V 


BALZAC’S PHILOSOPHICAL NOVELS. 


» 

THE MAGIC SKIN.— LOUIS LAMBERT. 

— ^SERAPHITA.^ 

TRANSLATED BY 

KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY. 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION TO EACH NOVEL BY 
GEORGE FREDERIC PARSONS. 

[From Le Livre, Revue du M<inde Litteraire, Paris, March, 1889 I 

There are men so great that humanity passes generations of existences in 
measuring them. . . . Certain it is that to-day the French Academy makes Bal- 
zac’s work the theme for its prize of eloquence, that the great writer is translated 
and commented upon in foreign countries, and that in Paris and even at Tours, 
his native place, statues are in process of being erected to him. . . . But the 
marble of M. Chapus, the bronze of M. Fournier, — Balzac sad or Balzac seated, — 
are of little consequence to the glory of the writer standing before the world, who 
bore a world in his brain and brought it forth, who was at once the Diderot and 
the Rabelais of this century, and who, above and beyond their fire, their imagina- 
tion, their superabounding life, their hilarious spirit, paradoxical and marvellously 
sagacious as it was, had in the highest degree the mystical gift of intuition, and is 
able, beyond all others, to open to us illimitable vistas of the Unseen. 

It is this side of Balzac’s genius which at the present time attracts and pre- 
occupies foreign critics. Mile Katharine Prescott Wormeley has undertaken to 
translate the “ Comddie Humaine” into English. She has already published 
several volumes which show a most intelligent sympathy and a talent that is both 
simple and vigorous. Lately she translated “ La Peau de Chagrin ” (“ The Magic 
Skin”), and now, taking another step into the esoteric work of the Master, she gives 
to the Anglo-Saxon public “ Louis Lambert.” But she does not venture upon this 
arduous task without support. Mr. George Frederic Parsons has undertaken in a 
long introduction to initiate the reader into the me.tning hidden , or, we should rather 
say. encased, in the psychologic study of a lofty soul which ends by inspiring mun- 
dane minds with respect for its seeming madness and a deep sense of the Beyond. 
. . . Many critics, and several noted ones, have so little understood the real mean- 
ing of “ Louis Lambert ” and “ Seraphita ” that they have wondered why the au- 
thor gave them a place in the “ Comedie Humaine,” which, nevertheless, without 
them would be a temple without a pediment, as M. Taine very clearly saw and 
said. Mr. Parsons takes advantage of Miss Wormeley’s translation to state and 
prove and elucidate this truth. The commentary may be thought a little long, a 
little replete, or too full of comparisons and erudite reference ; but all serious 
readers who follow it throughout w'ill never regret that they have thus prepared 
themselves to understand Balzac’s work. We call the attention of the philosophi- 
cal and theosophical journals to this powerful study. [Translated.] 


Handsome lamo volumes; bound in half Russia, French style. 
Price, $1.50 per volume. 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 


BALZAC IN ENQLISH. 


♦ 

COUSIN BETTE. 


TRANSLATED BY 

KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY. 


He [Balzac] does not make Vice the leading principle of life. The most terrible 
punishment invariably awaits transcressors. . . Psychologically considered, 
“ Cousin Bette ” with the “ Peau de Chagrin ” and “ The Alkahest ” are the most 
powerful of all Balzac’s studies. The marvellous acquaintance this romance-writer 
had with all phases and conditions of French men and women has never been 
more strongly accentuated. For a French romance presenting difficulties in 
translation, Miss Wormeley’s work is excellent. Its faithfulness is even remark- 
able. We can hardly conceive that after this series is completed Balzac will 
remain unknown or unappreciated by American readers. — New York Times. 

Balzac aspired to paint French life, especially Parisian life, in all its aspects, — 
“ the great modern monster with its every face,” to use his own words ; and in no 
one of his novels is his insight keener, his coloring bolder, or his disclosures of the 
corruptions of city life more painfully realistic, than in ” Cousin Bette.” . . . Not 
one of the admirably rendered series shows more breadth, skill, and sympathy 
with every characteristic of the great French author than does this. And it is 
quite a marvel of translation. — The Americatty Philadelphia. 

’T is true the book is not for babes, but he must have strange views of innocence 
who would ignore the influence for good inherent in such a work. Ignorance con- 
stitutes but a sorry shield against the onslaughts of temptation. It is well if wis- 
dom can be so cheaply got as by the perusal of the book. — American Hebre7v. 

It is an awful picture, but it is emphatically a work of genius. ... It cannot 
be said that “Cousin Bette” is a book for those who like only optimistic presen- 
tations of life. It is a study in morbid pathology ; an inquiry into the working of 
passions and vices, the mischief actually caused by what in all human societies is 
too patent and too constantly in evidence to be denied or ignored. . . He [Bal- 
zac] must be judged by the scientific standard, and from that point of view there 
can be no hesitation in declaring “ Cousin Bette ” a most powerful work. — New 
York Trihme. 

And there is much in the characters that is improper and fortunately counter to 
our civilization ; still the tone concerning these very things is a healthy one, and 
Balzac’s belief in purity and goodness, his faith in the better part of humanity, is 
shown in the beautiful purity of Madame Hulot, and the lovely chastity of Hor- 
tense. In “Cousin Bette,” as in all Balzac’s works, he manifests a familiarity 
with the ethics of life which has gained for him the exalted position as Uie greatest 
of French novelists. — Si. Paul Dispatch. 


One handsome i2mo volumey uniform with Plre Goriotf “ The 
Diichesse de Langeaisf “ Char BirotteaUy'' “ Eugenie Grandetf 
“ Cousin Ponsf “ The Country Doctor f “ The Two Brothers f “ The 
Alkahest f “ The Magic Skinf and “ Modeste MignonP Bound in half 
morocco, French Style. Price, 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publi.sher.s, 

Boston. 


BALZAC IN ENGLISH. 


The Magic Skin. 

(LA PEAU DE CHAGRIN.) 

TRANSLATED BY 

KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY. 

♦ 

“The Magic Skin ” is a great novel, — great in its conception, great in its 
eJ'ecution, and great in the impression it leaves upon the reader’s mind. Those 
who deny that Balzac is a moral teacher will retract their opinion after reading this 
powerful allegory. It is a picturesque representation of the great moral truth that 
in life we have to pay for every excess we enjoy. In the gradual shrinking of the 
“Magic Skin” we see the inevitable law that by uncontrolled dissipation of body 
or mind we use up our physical strength and exhaust our vitality. In that beauti- 
ful, cold, fascinating character, Fddora, the writer shows us the glittering world of 
fashion and frivolity which men pursue vainly and find to their cost only dust and 
ashes. In the gentle, loving, and devoted Pauline, Balzac represents the lasting 
and pure pleasures of domestic life. But in Raphael’s short enjoyment of them 
we see the workings of that inflexible law, “ Whatever ye sow that shall ye also 
reap.” In the vivid, striking, realistic picture of Parisian life which Balzac pre- 
sents to us in “ The Magic Skin,” the writer had a conscious moral purpose. We 
know of no more awful allegory in literature. — Boston Transcript. 

The story is powerful and original ; but its readers will be most affected by its 
marvellous knowledge of human nature, and the deep-cutting dissection of charac- 
ter which makes the attempts of our own analytical novelists appear superficial 
and experimental. Lite in all classes of the Paris of Louis Philippe’s time is por- 
trayed in the strongest lights and .shadows, and with continual flashes of wit, 
satire, and sarcasm which spare neither politician, philosopher, priest, poet, jour- 
nalist, artist, man of the world, nor woman of the world. Through a maze of 
heterogeneous personages Raphael, the hero, is carried, pursued by the relentless 
Magic Skin, which drives him meicilessly to his doom. The vices of high society 
are laid bare ; but there is also a beautiful exposition of purity in the humble life 
of Pauline, who is the good angel of the story. In translating “ La Beau de Cha- 
grin” Miss Wormeley has done work that is at once skilful and discreet. It is a 
man’s book, virile though not vulgar, and exposing prominences in F rench social 
views such as most writers veil in obscurities. Here all is frankly and honestly 
shown, but by a man of genius, who had no more need of prudish hypocrisy than 
Shakespeare. 

Mr. Parsons’s thoughtful preface is a fitting introduction to the most wonder- 
ful of all Balzac’s romances. It is not a whit too strong for Mr. Parsons to write 
that, saving Shakespeare, “no man could have been better fitted to examine men- 
tal processes, to gauge their effects, to estimate their significance, and to define 
their nature and sc(^ ’ than Balzac. If Balzac had been a German, and not a 
Frenchman of the French, this book of his would be as much of an epoch-maker 
as Goethe’s “ Faust.” It may take years before the fuller appreciation of “ La 
Peau de Chagrin ” comes, but it is a study of life which will be studied in cen- 
turies yet to come. — New York Times. 


One handsome \imo volume., ttniform with P'tre Goriot^' “ The 
Duchesse de Langeais^' Cesar Birotteau," Eugenie Grandet,'^ 
“ Cousin PonsT “ The Country Doctor^'' “ The Two Brothers^'' “ The 
Alkahest,^’ and Modeste MignonP Boujid in half morocco^ French 
style. Price, J^i.50. 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 

Boston. 


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